


A Bird in Morning

by audreycritter



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: 1980s Bruce is Good Bruce, Batdad, Bruce Wayne is a Good Dad, Coping, Family Drama, Gen, Jason Comes Back to Life AU, PTSD, Trauma, dealing with fallout of bad comic canon decisions, post Death in the Family Continuity, some major au-ing, some minor rewriting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2018-03-26
Packaged: 2018-12-02 18:33:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 45,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11515044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/audreycritter/pseuds/audreycritter
Summary: One night, six months after he died, Jason Todd climbed out of his coffin and stumbled twelve miles through icy November rain. He ended up in a Gotham hospital, surrounded by people who most certainly knew Bruce Wayne from pictures, and possibly-- possibly-- his adopted son. Somebody was bound to recognize him, as crazy as it was.Six months after Jason Todd died, Bruce Wayne is barely functioning.It's about time they found each other again.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cerusee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerusee/gifts).



> First, major thanks to cerusee for so much help with this story. 
> 
> Second, this story retains part of the resurrection canon in Under the Hood, but not all. 
> 
> Third, Bruce was a good dad in the 1980s. Not perfect, but good. And Jason was not, for the most part, the hyper-violent unstable child more recent canon as recast him as being. This story is one deeply in love with 1980s nerdy Jason and good Batdad. Make of that what you will. :)

 

 

> _Everyone Sang_  
>  By Siegfried Sassoon
> 
>   
>  Everyone suddenly burst out singing;  
>  And I was filled with such delight  
>  As prisoned birds must find in freedom,  
>  Winging wildly across the white  
>  Orchards and dark-green fields; on - on - and out of sight.
> 
> Everyone’s voice was suddenly lifted;  
>  And beauty came like the setting sun:  
>  My heart was shaken with tears; and horror  
>  Drifted away … O, but Everyone  
>  Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.

* * *

The rain was coming down so hard that the windshield wipers couldn’t clear it fast enough. Alexa Lenhart hunched down in the passenger seat and bit her lip. Water covered the road.

“Derek–” she started.

“Not now, Alex!” her boyfriend snapped, sounding more nervous than angry. He tapped the brake and the back of the car jerked one way and then the other.

“Derek!”

They lurched to a stop. For a moment, neither of them spoke. Alexa didn’t even breathe. When she pulled her hands down into her lap, Derek Brantley was staring wide-eyed at the road.

“Do you even now where we are?” she demanded, her hands shaking. She balled them together and for a second had a vision of her mom doing that exact same thing during a fight with her dad before the divorce. Something about it scared her more than the fishtailing had, dropping a cold and lonely stone in the pit of her stomach.

“How the hell would I?” Derek spat back, but his anger seemed empty now that she was so terrified. “ _You_  wanted to take a bunch of turns. I wanted to stay on the main roads, remember?”

Alexa fought the hot tears threatening to overspill. She sniffled and turned her head, watching the downpour outside the window. She forced her hands to relax.

“I’m sorry,” he said after a long silence. “This was a bad idea.”

In the bushes just beside the road, there was movement. Alexa squinted through the rain, which was  _finally_  letting up. The windshield wipers were starting to squeak against the glass.

“Today’s been shitty enough without the silent treatment,” Derek said, like it was a joke. “C’mon. Alex. I’m sorry.”

“Shh,” she said, batting at him when he reached for her. She peered at the bushes. There was  _definitely_  something moving. “Did you see that?” Alexa asked, when a large section of shrub shook violently. Her swatting him away turned into slapping his shoulder. “Derek. Derek, start the car.”

“What?” Derek unbuckled and stretched across to look out the window with her. “I don’t see anything.”

“Right there,” Alexa whispered, frozen and panicking at the same time.

The bushes swayed again and a figure stumbled out onto the road, with a shambling gait, soaked through and dripping mud and rainwater and something dark red. He lurched in front of the car, only feet from the hood, and turned to face them. His face was gray and his lips were blue and his eyes, his  _eyes_ …Alexa couldn’t see any pupils or color or anything but white.

Squeaking from the windshield wipers was frantic but Alexa’s piercing scream drowned it out. The thing on the road didn’t even flinch but Derek was screaming next to her and the volume hurt her ears but she couldn’t stop. Before she even sucked in a breath to scream again, she’d already imagined how she’d die if that  _thing_  got into the car, the way it would eat her first and then Derek and how borrowing Derek’s uncle’s car was the  _stupidest fucking thing_ they’d ever done, even worse than sneaking into the abandoned Hilton to skinny dip in the pool with all the lights off after that fire, and she was going to die and she probably deserved it after what she’d said to her mom the night before.

She was vaguely aware of Derek gripping her arm so hard it was going to leave bruises and she suddenly violently hated,  _hated_  Bristol and if she was going to die it was going to be while angry and not scared because she’d spent too many of her sixteen years being scared and flinching away from things and at least she was going to die with Derek and she  _loved_  Derek and he loved her and wasn’t there a pair of scissors or  _something_  in the damn car because his uncle was a safety freak who worried about things like locked-up seatbelts in the filthy river.

Alexa fumbled forward for the glove compartment, still screaming, while Derek let go to turn the key in the ignition but his hands must have been shaking too hard because he was just banging his knuckles against the dash every time he reached and missed.

Then the thing moved its mouth, like it was talking, and it looked so helpless and normal aside from basically everything else. The thing looked a lot less like a thing and a lot more like a boy, a boy like Derek, who was crying and muttering “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry,” next to her.

Then the boy in the road didn’t leap forward to attack them, to break the window like a bad movie, but he took another step and collapsed.

“Ohmigod,” Alexa gasped, her throat raw from screaming. She hit Derek’s shoulder. “Get out, get out and help him. Derek, get out!”

The blank look on Derek’s face was replaced by another kind of horror and he stopped grabbing for the keys and a second later, he was out of the car. He must have realized almost the same time she did or they would have sat there arguing, instead of Alexa jumping out of the passenger side and into the now-drizzling rain.

Derek was already kneeling by the boy when she came around the front and he had hesitated, his hands aloft by the boy’s head. The kid smelled awful and couldn’t have been much younger than either of them, his hair long and limp across his forehead and on his neck. He was wearing the tattered remnants of a suit, but it was beyond ruined.

“Call 911,” Derek ordered, his voice shaky. “Is your phone working? Call 911.”

Alexa wrestled it out of her too-small pocket and pressed the numbers, dropping to her knees next to Derek on the asphalt. The boy was mumbling something, over and over. She leaned closer while the phone rang once.

“Bruce,” the boy said, plainly now that she was close enough to hear. “Bruce.” Then his eyes closed.

The dispatcher was asking her questions and no matter how much Derek shook the boy he wouldn’t wake back up.

* * *

The great house was not empty but it  _felt_  empty. It had for months now. For one hundred and eighty three days, the inhabitants moved like they were the ghosts, like they were the ones who had died instead.

Meals held in a dim dining room, where the light spilling from the vaulted ceiling did little to dispel the shadows, were not helping matters at all. Especially when dinner was served at four in the morning.

For nearly ten minutes, Bruce Wayne had been sitting in front of a plate of cooling food. He’d barely eaten half of it. The fork was still in his hand but he was staring at the table runner like he was somewhere else entirely.

“Sir.” Alfred startled him with a gentle interruption, the refilling of a water glass and a hand offering to take the plate. Bruce set the fork down deliberately, uncurling his fingers, and let the older man take the unfinished food.

“Thank you for dinner, Alfred,” he said automatically. “It was…”

He wanted to say good. That was the script. But he found himself glancing over at Alfred, patiently waiting with the plate in hand, to see what the food had even been. He couldn’t remember, even though he had mechanically cut and chewed and swallowed it.

“How are the vehicle modifications coming along?” Alfred asked instead, turning toward a small cart and setting the plate in a bin.

“They’re coming,” Bruce said, shaking his head a little to clear it. “I’ll be able to install the new autopilot soon.”

It was like talking about somebody else’s plans, for someone else’s life. He felt no interest at the moment in one of the few projects he’d actually cared about recently. The night had been a long one, after a long day, and that always made it harder.

He’d come back drenched, every bit of the suit and cape either soaked or dripping water off hydrophobic material. And he’d gone from freezing rain into the shower in the chilled cave and now his hair was still damp and he felt for a moment like he’d maybe never be warm again. His ribs hurt from a blow he’d taken.

“Sleep, Master Bruce,” suggested Alfred, moving out of the dining room with the cart ahead of him. “And maybe a night off would be in order.”

“I’ll think about it,” Bruce replied, but they both knew as soon as he said it that it wasn’t true. He didn’t take nights off anymore, not unless an injury made it impossible to move. He was out in the cape or at the hospital with Barbara or working overnight improving gear.

Nights off were for men who could sleep.

Still, the driftless but grating tension at the Manor left him in no mood to argue with Alfred. He’d done enough of that already, plus with himself and with Dick. It was an unrooted kind of conflict, the kind that could creep into a mundane conversation or spring out of mere silence until everyone was clamping their mouths shut and even Alfred went about thin-lipped or with tears in his eyes.

Bruce had lost count of how many times either of them had escaped to other rooms to hide. The quiet in the kitchen or the study were often almost tangible things, a heavy presence that spoke of forcibly hushed noises somewhere nearby.

No, he wouldn’t argue or outright fight the suggestion and other than suggesting it, Alfred wouldn’t insist.

He pushed the chair back and stood.

“Get some rest, Al,” he said, but then he turned and remembered Alfred had already left the dining room. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been sitting there alone.

The temptation to close his eyes for the walk upstairs was immense, but he wouldn’t allow himself even if he knew he could do it. Slow steps up the wide, carpeted stairs. Past the balcony railing. Into the hall. One foot in front of the other, going by the two empty bedrooms and then the locked door to Jason’s bedroom.

Bruce went without hesitating but making it to Dick’s door, also locked but for other reasons, and then his own brought a tiny inward relief. It was over. And into his own room he went, pausing to tug the curtains more firmly shut against the sunrise just a few hours away.

He’d likely wake before it, but just in case he actually slept for once, he wanted it to last as long as it could.

Daylight brought thinking and reality and there was never enough work to chase it away.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first couple chapters will have a couple OCs just for plot and then they'll disappear. I promise this will focus on canon characters and family/friendship relationships!

At 6:58 AM, Chris Davis was readying to take over a shift in the ICU. Part of this involved going over the chart he was responsible for and checking in with the previous shift, who he found in the patient’s room writing up notes.

“Hey, Chris,” she greeted with only a brief glance up. “You get the exciting case today. Ambulance brought him in late last night, no ID. Police are coming by again today to see if he remembers anything else.”

Chris scanned the file she handed over to him, taking in the hours of previous reports— limited consciousness, signs of oxygen deprivation, assumed psychological trauma in absence of anything concerning on the CT, high temp, early pneumonia, various abrasions and lacerations on his feet, hands, and wrists.

He studied the pale and bruised face of the sleeping kid and had the sudden conviction that he’d _met_ him somewhere before. He couldn’t quite place him.

“How often is he waking?”

“Not much,” the other nurse yawned and stretched. “All anybody’s gotten out of him is the name Bruce and something about his dad.”

Chris had shifted his gaze to her but the words dragged it back over to the boy with a thunderclap of clarity.

“His dad?” Chris echoed, fighting the impossible connection. It didn’t make _any_ sense.

“I don’t know if he said Bruce was his dad or if he was saying the name Bruce and _asked_ for his dad,” she clarified. “He told a doctor right before the CT. We’re supposed to write down anything he says, but he’s been quiet as a mouse the whole time he’s been with me.”

“Okay,” Chris said. “Will do.”

“Good luck. They think he dug himself out of somewhere, with the condition his hands are in. Poor kid. Must’ve been bad, whatever happened.”

She left and Chris automatically moved through the motions of beginning his shift. He was distracted but not sloppy: blood pressure, temperature, IV line and med/fluid check. He wrote it all down while sitting in a chair against the wall. He would spend almost all of his shift in this one room, keeping on eye on everything an ICU patient couldn’t communicate about on their own.

When he finished writing, the boy’s face still looked frighteningly familiar. Chris fought the gnawing suspicion for all of two minutes and then pulled out his phone, telling himself he was _crazy_ , he was _insane_ , it was normal for people to have dopplegängers and he was probably misremembering anyway.

The Gotham society blogs were in his favorite tabs, along with People and Entertainment Weekly and a few others. He searched while telling himself how stupid it was and within seconds had images of Jason Todd, Bruce Wayne’s adopted son, pulled up. It was six or seven of the same images in varying quality and size. At least half of them were more than two years old. They were pretty reclusive people, which meant the blogs ran the few decent or official pictures for reference every time they got their hands on a fuzzy or distant one.

The picture that came up the most was a school photo, a smirking boy looking almost straight into the camera and in good lighting. Chris knew it was the one that had run with the obituary in all the real papers.

And then, just in case he was going crazy, he checked the file two more times to make sure it actually said ‘Bruce,’ that he wasn’t making things up.

He wasn’t making things up.

The boy looked _exactly_ like Jason Todd, aside from slightly longer hair and the bruises on his face.

When the police came an hour later, Chris Davis threw caution to the wind and handed over his suspicion, however crazy it was. If prints and dentals cleared them, they could all just write it off as a crazy coincidence of appearance and name.

But it was Gotham, after all.

And Chris knew, after nine years of being a nurse, that Gotham was a crazy place.

* * *

Today was not a good day. Maybe it was the weather, the rainy low pressure system leaving her with an ache in her upper back, right where her body felt like a body to her again, and a bit of a dull headache.

Barbara Gordon rubbed her stinging eyes and closed her laptop, knowing that the screen wasn’t helping anything. She’d wanted to finish some coding work and toy around with autocad layouts some more, but maybe she just needed a break.

The shelf next to the raised hospital bed had a spot for the laptop, right next to a pile of books and little trinkets that had slowly moved in over the past eight months since her transfer to a private room in the rehab facility. She didn’t know if it was comforting or infuriating that the private room, with its bland wallpaper and line of medical equipment, now looked and felt so much like home.

She was ready to be done, to move out and on her own again and she was _so close_ to that idea not triggering waves of panic in conjunction with the sweet hint of freedom.

But today, Babs didn’t want to do anything. Her interest in the coding projects she had in progress by the dozen had dwindled, the Clocktower layouts seemed pointless, and she wanted to give up. Most days, the periods of rage and hopelessness at her situation could be whittled down to a mere hour or two in total. It was getting better, easier to stop dwelling on what _should_ have been and instead focus on what life she could shape for herself _now_.

But a day would roll around, like the present one, where it was too exhausting to care about it for herself. She checked the time— there was an hour left until her next therapy session, then the gym would be open for supervised additional workouts for a few hours after that.

Today was a Tuesday, which meant Bruce would stop by in the evening. His visits were like clockwork and so even though she wanted to curl up in bed and cancel the rest of her day, to beg off of everything, she couldn’t bear the thought of facing him and knowing she hadn’t spent the day doing all she could.

He didn’t know about the Clocktower yet. If he had, he hadn’t said anything. And she was pretty sure he didn’t know, even if he knew she was planning _something_ because of the way she dodged questions about her future plans except for insisting she had one.

Babs felt her own highs and lows of determination and despair so keenly still, so intensely close to her own heart, that if she was forced to give up her grand schemes it would be better if she was the only one hurt by that disappointment. And it was nice to have a project that felt important and that was just hers, where she could arrange things on her own and nobody was asking to help or insisting that they should.

She’d been putting off getting out of bed too long that morning already and the chair was right there just _waiting_ for her to act. She needed a shower, she needed more coffee, she needed to not collapse under her own tragedy _again_ when at least she was still alive.

At one point, she’d wished she was dead instead.

Sometimes, deep down? She still wished it a little.

But then she’d still been figuring out basics of her new self-care routine and waiting for what they could salvage of her vertebrae to heal when Bruce had skipped two weekly visits while out of the country on business and finding Jason.

Not very many people had known about either.

Then he’d come back while she watched news reports about the disappearance of and suspected death of the Joker after that clusterfuck of his political appointment, feeling joyously relieved and triumphant that at least the shitstain was _gone_.

The first time Bruce came to visit after that, she’d been prepared to nudge him out of whatever morose mood he’d settled into and celebrate, preferably with some champagne smuggled by the nurses. Babs was willing to go a day without pain meds for _that_ drink.

And it had taken her all of two seconds to realize that something was terribly, terribly wrong.

Bruce had barely spoken and Babs gathered just enough to know that she had no idea what to say, but also enough to know that she didn’t feel like celebrating anymore and it felt like one final, horrific joke.

She’d managed to organize things a few days later so she could leave the hospital with a hired nurse and attend the tiny funeral.

So, she hauled her butt and her now useless legs out of bed and transferred with minimal fumbling to the chair. She took herself to the private bathroom and made herself get ready for the day. If she hurried, she could still get in a half hour of coding before OT.

Giving up would be like a slap in the face: to herself and what she’d already done, to Bruce and proving to him by example that he couldn’t just shut down forever, to Jason’s memory.

And also, it wasn’t Barbara Gordon. She wasn’t a quitter and she wasn’t about to pick up _that_ as a new habit. There were enough things to learn and master without adding more.

By afternoon, pushing through arm workouts, it had stopped even feeling like such a bad day.

Hard, maybe. But not bad.


	3. Chapter 3

A quick indent of the soda can tab sent a faint hiss through the quiet room, where Grant Montaigne sat in the glow of a monitor running prints and dentals.

So far, no matches. Even the federal database somewhere south in the country had come up empty.

It was a _weird_ case. A nameless boy, barely talking at all, a full deck of disturbing injuries that led forensics to believe he’d been _buried_ somewhere and escaped, no holes or disturbed graves in a ten mile radius of his discovery, and a nurse so convinced that the kid was Bruce Wayne’s dead son that it was somewhere in the rapidly-thickening file in bold handwriting. 

Montaigne had strict orders from higher up that this was completely confidential. Nobody wanted to risk damaging a relationship with one of the Gotham police force’s biggest private supporters over something as absolutely insane as…this.

But Montaigne sat in front of the computer while the software ran a seemingly endless search. The few partial matches it had returned for prints, taken from the unconscious boy while he slept through a fever, had been automatically ruled out. A woman who had died in 1985, a man in his fifties serving time in a west coast federal prison. Nothing close in description or even an exact print match.

And Montaigne couldn’t help thinking about every bit of crazy shit he’d seen in Gotham in his couple of years on the force. It was a city of nightmares come to life, of the ugliest and most improbable explanations. Everybody was involved and he knew it. Hadn’t he held out for so long, only to crumble the first time he had a chance to skim some money off of evidence? Whoever it belonged to was likely dead or on their way to Blackgate (or worse, Arkham), and thirty thousand just sitting in a bag in an evidence locker wasn’t doing anybody any good.

Gotham was the sort of place where you just made those sort of compromises. Montaigne hadn’t even gone wild with it. When the opportunity presented itself, he kept a handle on his deeper desires and played it safe. Just enough to cover his rent one month. Enough to take his girlfriend to a Knights game, good seats. And he felt like Gotham _owed_ him. Hadn’t he put his life on the line, over and over, in the face of fear gas and laughing toxin and mob bullets, only to be told raises had to wait another year?

Nothing was _ever_ in the budget except more equipment to keep the darkest threats at bay.

He considered, while sipping his soda that the station had milked him $1.75 to get, that as much as he wanted to believe in good guys, he wasn’t sure they existed. There were good guys like him, who cut corners to get by, and then there were good guys who were just hiding how corrupt they really were.

It was part hunch and part fear that goaded him to pause the search he was babysitting and try a new angle.

Instead of searching for a match, he ignored his superiors’ dismissive reactions and checked the interview notes with the nurse, then searched directly for Jason Todd. That brought up a handful of results in the city and surrounding county that didn’t match. He hunted for news articles on another computer and then tried again: Jason P Todd, Jason Peter Todd, Jason Todd Wayne, Jason Peter Wayne.

With every fruitless search, his suspicion deepened and turned to urgency in his gut. There was _something_ going on here. He didn’t know what, but it wasn’t right.

He accessed public records, cross-searching surnames. There was the record of the adoption proceedings in which Jason Todd had retained his birth name, which seemed weird to Montaigne. If you had the chance to throw the Wayne name and all it’s weight around, why _wouldn’t_ you?

But the adoption record was where it began and ended.

No fingerprints in the database. No rap sheet, not even a scrubbed or expunged juvenile one, for a rags-to-riches story from Park Row. No birth certificate, no death certificate. 

Some of those things _had_ existed once. They must have. But they were gone now, from any database Montaigne had access to. And that reeked of money, of bribes and scandals and dirt.

All of it gone except for a boy in a hospital on the upper Westside who had dug himself out of a hole somewhere where he’d fallen or where _someone_ has tried to bury him.

There was no way the higher-ups would pursue this, risk disturbing their golden boy, unless they got some external pressure.

Montaigne wasn’t an idiot. He copied and gathered what he could and then waited, waited until he was off-duty and home in his little apartment and called the bigger Gotham papers. Somebody would have to get back to him. 

It was risky, handing over potential evidence to a reporter, but when there was corruption and maybe even attempted murder involved, it was worth the risk to break the case. Taking risks was what good guys did to do the right thing.

And Grant Montaigne was a good _enough_ guy, even if other people like Bruce Wayne were maybe turning out not to be.

* * *

The strong aroma of coffee filled the Manor kitchen. Alfred Pennyworth transferred an omelet from a skillet to a plate and added it to the tray, next to toasted sourdough and the steaming mug.

A small under-the-cabinet stereo played an Arvo Pärt album, volume low enough that it couldn’t be heard in the dining room. Additional noise in the house seemed to set Bruce on edge as of late, whereas Alfred felt the need to chase some of the silence away. 

The quiet was too full and Alfred Pennyworth felt too worn down to bear it.

He was thoroughly fatigued, in a way that sleep did not remedy. There were smaller tasks of household maintenance sitting neglected and waiting for a spring that had no promise of arriving, no set calendar to follow. 

To be certain, he had thrown himself into work as of late. Rooms cleaned were cleaned meticulously, meals were prepared with utmost care and eye to detail even though they were rarely eaten in full, errands were checked off the list. But such tasks, while absorbing, were not absorbing enough. He was growing slow, his movements through the day hampered by unnatural pauses that he did not notice until well into their duration. 

He himself had risen early, though not as early as he had in prior days, and eaten a small breakfast. A year ago, it would have been a prelude to the day: a snack before the morning chores, followed by sharing a real breakfast. 

Now, it was often all he ate until lunch. 

It was why he would set the omelet and toast down in front of Bruce and make the barest effort at encouraging him to eat, but not force the matter. He knew how difficult it could be. 

The household had seen its share of grief and loss before, but this wound was raw and fresh. Alfred knew they would survive, but the state in which they did so was yet to be determined. He himself felt pangs of worry for the younger occupant of the house that were often drowned out by his own anguish, and brought with it selfish guilt.

A long shelf of classical and neoclassical albums was seeing a lot of daily use in an attempt to push away this internal mess.

The strains of the Arvo Pärt album faded behind him as he entered the dining room, tray in hand. Bruce was already there, waiting and looking over papers. That was a good sign. If he was absorbed in work, he might eat more from lack of conscious attention to the food.

This was no time to scold or insist on manners. Alfred set the tray down at the same moment Bruce’s pocket buzzed. He stepped back as the younger man checked the screen and could see from his vantage point that it was an unrecognized Gotham number.

“Hello?” Bruce answered. 

There was a moment of murmuring through the speaker. Alfred couldn’t make out the words, but the tone was rushed and insistent and went on for longer than a mere introduction. He watched as Bruce stiffened in the chair, his spine straightening out of a slight morning slouch. 

“How did you get this number?” Bruce demanded, his tone sharp and hard and far from the casual society voice he used with most public. When Alfred, concerned, shifted forward to observe, he did so in time to watch the color drain from Bruce’s face. 

There was more dialogue from the earpiece and then, without another reply, Bruce ended the call and slammed the phone down so hard on the dining table that the candlesticks trembled and the resounding crack of the screen echoed against the high ceilings.

For seconds, they were frozen— Bruce rigid and bristling, Alfred worried and confused. Fury rolled off Bruce in waves and Alfred knew that whatever had transpired on the phone had struck a deep chord. But then again, Bruce was so often angry these days, it was hard to tell without knowing the details how serious the matter actually was.

Alfred knew, too, about that kind of consuming anger. He himself bit his tongue these days, holding back irritation and ire, far more than usual.

“Everything alright, sir?” Alfred asked. If nothing else, it would be helpful to know what arena of their lives this involved.

“A reporter,” Bruce said tightly. And then, in a breath, he visibly deflated and shoved the plate to the side to put his elbows on the table and drop his face into his hands. When he spoke again, it was with words rough and muffled and slow. “Asking about Jason.”

And now Alfred’s own rage surged, at the callousness and intrusion the household had long lived with, the attention that came with wealth. It was barely eight in the morning.

Desperate for something to do, so he wouldn’t pour his own feelings out where they would do only harm, he reached for the remnants of the broken phone. 

“Leave it,” Bruce said hoarsely. “I’ll take care of it.”

Alfred left it and the room. He’d return in a moment, but he needed time to collect himself and he suspected Bruce needed the same. 

The hall was beginning to smell stuffy, in need of some air and wood polish, and the idea of the orange-scented cleaner made Alfred think of Thanksgiving. It was fast approaching and he doubted there was any use in making plans, beyond the customary menu. He wondered if he ought to ring Richard and implore him to return, though his last visit had not gone well.

In the hall, right outside the kitchen, a cello refrain carried out from the speakers. Alfred listened, and had just decided that he’d given Bruce and himself each enough time to at least go see if the omelet was a total waste this morning, when the gate bell rang.

The video and intercoms were mounted by the front door, the study, and the kitchen; Alfred went for the nearest. He paused the music before pressing the intercom button, recognizing Vicki Vale in the car right before he did so.

“I’m afraid this morning isn’t a good time, Miss Vale.” Alfred frowned. It had been a male voice on the phone, he was certain, so _something_ was brewing if not coincidence.

“I need to talk to Bruce,” Vicki answered. “I know he’s still there. Wake him up if he’s not already; it’s important.”

“I really must insist you phone and schedule—”

“Alfred, I’m here as a friend. I need to talk to him, and today, as soon as possible. I don’t really care if he wants to see me or not. I’m a big girl, I can handle a surly mood.”

Alfred had his doubts that Vicki Vale had ever done anything in her adult life exclusively as a friend. She was one of those people married to her work, and her spouse came everywhere with her. She hid very little from it.

“Miss Vale,” Alfred tried again, wondering how much he ought to deflect. It was Bruce that interrupted him, standing at the edge of the kitchen holding the dining room door open.

“Let her in,” he said. “I want to know what the hell is going on.”

The door was swinging closed before Alfred could muster a reply, so he turned back to the video and keyed in the code to unlock the gate.

“Very well, Miss Vale. Mr. Wayne will see you after all.”

“Thanks, Alfred, you’re a doll,” she answered. “I won’t stay long.”


	4. Chapter 4

Bruce Wayne didn’t retreat to his study to wait for Vicki Vale. It would have felt too much like hiding. He waited on his feet in the parlor for Alfred to greet Vicki at the door and lead her in. He briefly wondered if he should go upstairs on the pretense of finishing getting ready for the day, but not because Vicki would care if his hair was slightly out of place or that he was in slippers.

Vicki  _wouldn’t_  care. It would give him time to compose himself, though. He was calm now, but he was going to have to stay that way. He didn’t want to talk to Vicki, he didn’t want to  _talk_. He didn’t want to go into the office or take a day off to rest at home.

He wanted to go straight down to the cave and pound away at a half-dozen cases that could use his attention, to do as much legwork as he could before dark, when he could go out and  _really_  work.

But Bruce also still had the questions that fell through the phone less than fifteen minutes ago swirling in his head, impossible to ignore or make sense of without more context.

_Do you have a response to the allegation that you conspired to erase any identifying record of your presumed dead son, Jason Todd?_

Presumed. What the  _hell_  did that mean? Gotham had the obit, the falsified story, a coffin, a grave. Bruce had the nightmare of walking with the lifeless body in his arms, blood all over everything. He woke from it often only to find upon waking one of the few constants of his life: his nightmares were real and didn’t fade with the rising sun.

_Will you confirm or deny that Jason Todd died in the way reported to the public?_

That was too close to the truth, that the cover story of a vacation adventure gone terribly wrong was in fact, complete and utter fabrication.

And as much as Bruce wanted to ignore the questions and ignore the memories, it was no honor to Jason’s memory. It was no honor for everything Bruce, Dick, Barbara, Alfred, and  _Jason himself_  had worked to build to explode in their faces because Bruce wanted to escape.

Vicki Vale came into the room two steps ahead of Alfred, her high heels clicking on the wooden floors until she stepped onto the plush rug. She had gotten dressed quickly, on little sleep, and had been up for a while already— if she’d slept that night at all. Her hair was pulled back into a tight bun and she held a Manila envelope under her arm.

“Bruce,” she greeted.

“Vicki,” he returned evenly. At least she didn’t sound falsely chipper or openly concerned. He could handle business-like right now. “Why is a reporter for the Tribune calling my private line before eight in the morning?”

“Right to the point,” Vicki said, clicking her tongue. “And they got to you already? The Dispatch is going to call you today, too, but maybe a work number. You didn’t answer anything, did you?”

“I’m not an idiot, Vick. I’ve been doing this a long time.” Bruce found it hard to keep the irritation out of his voice and in return, got a stony glare from her.

“Even smart men screw up when the subject is touchy. And if the reports are true, you screwed up  _big time_ ,” she retorted. She was unbinding the curling elastic cord from the folder clasp. “I’ll take that as a no, though. Good.”

“Come to call in old favors and get the scoop?” Bruce asked, and he  _knew_  he sounded bitter, but it was that or helpless. One of those was not an option.

Still, her expression softened just a little and she put a hand on his arm. He pulled away, just the barest of steps back, and she let her hand drop and went back to pulling papers out of the folder.

“No,” she said, in a tone that held too much sympathy— maybe pity— for his liking. She handed him the papers.

They were printouts of screen captures, Jason’s name filled in and the databases searched yielding empty results.

The missing fingerprints. The missing rap sheet, the missing birth certificate. Any database that should have hosted those things was empty of them, and Bruce knew it.

“What am I looking at?” he asked anyway. There was still some use in a minor pretense with Vicki Vale.

“Two nights ago, some kids got lost while out for a drive. They found a boy, in pretty bad shape. No name or identification, barely talking.” Vicki sounded like she was delivering classified information, her voice low even though the house was remarkably secure. “He was admitted to Westside General with a whole cocktail of problems, and is currently fighting pneumonia.”

“What does this have to do with Jason?” Bruce demanded, his tongue tripping on the name despite his best efforts.

“Kid’s still not talking except for two things: ‘Bruce. My dad.’ He keeps saying them over and over. He’s barely conscious, from what I hear. Some nurse gets the idea that he looks like Jason Todd and mentions this to the police. They haven’t been able to find the faintest hint of where this kid came from or who he belongs with, so this cop calls the Gazette and the two other papers last night and drops this on all of us.”

Bruce swallowed hard, feeling genuine unease overwhelming his anger for the first time since she’d stepped into the room. He glanced at the papers in his hands again. “Jason’s information was scrubbed from the system so no one could abuse it for kidnapping or stalking. You know that, Vicki. We did it with Dick, too.”

That’s  _always_  been the story, when people poked around.

“I do, but they don’t,” Vicki said. “And I’m not going to lie, Bruce. If I didn’t know you better, even I would be suspicious. I hate being so blunt when I can’t imagine what you’re going through–” To her credit, her voice didn’t take on that grating softness so many people did. “–but it looks bad. It looks like Bruce Wayne, the billionaire, had second thoughts about his rescue project and tried to make it disappear. That’s how they’re going to spin this and you know it.”

The accusation, even the  _idea_  of it, was so horrible that the papers crumpled in Bruce’s hand before he processed that he was balling his fingers into tight fists. He needed something to throw, something heavy and hard.

“I would  _never_  have–” Bruce began, rapidly approaching a shout. Vicki took a small step back but held her ground.

“I know,” she said. “And you might be able to outrun it, eventually. But it’s going to be a shitstorm and you and your company are going to suffer publically, probably financially, while you ride it out. In normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have to tell you this.”

For a moment, Bruce considered it. Holing up and tuning out everything they said, no matter how awful. He could still make a difference in the cowl, even if Bruce Wayne lost public favor.

Then he thought of Alfred, of Dick. He thought about anyone, even a stranger, reading about the adoption and the loss and assuming for even a few seconds that they knew what he’d lost when he lost Jay, and how terribly off the mark they’d be.

The last thing Bruce had ever wanted was to make or let Jason disappear. When he didn’t have nightmares about the aftermath, they were dreams of endlessly driving, walking, stalking rooftops looking for those familiar hunched shoulders in a hoodie. In his dreams, just like in real life, he never found him in Gotham, still safe.

“Why are you here?” he asked. He sounded old, to himself. “Why does it matter to you?”

Vicki looked like she was giving the questions serious consideration. She reached out and gently took the wadded papers out of his grip. He let her.

“I’m here,” she said, bending at the waist to smooth the papers out on the arm of a formal sofa. “to help. My editor knows the other papers are running a story, stories that’ll have no comment from you. We can do better than that. You come with me to the hospital, show some support for this poor kid and give me a statement about how Wayne money will help him find his family. You produce those fingerprint records for just this case, and let the police prove that it’s not Jason. If the other papers catch wind of what we’re doing and run their stories anyway, it makes them look like the inconsiderate assholes that they are.”

Bruce sat down on the sofa and frowned.

On his long list of things he didn’t want to do, going to see a battered, sick boy who resembled Jason even in the slightest was nearly at the top of the list.

Vicki perched on the edge of the sofa next to him, close but not touching. “My editor wants me to run something, but I’m not here for business first. I’m here as a friend. I’m worried about you, Bruce. You’ve been publically more reclusive and distracted. God knows you have a reason. But I don’t want to see you dragged through the mud on this, on top of everything else. You know me. I will  _happily_  drag you myself if I think you’ve done anything to warrant it. But not over this.”

This time, she put a hand on his knee and didn’t move it away when he tensed. He didn’t close his eyes or sigh, but he met her gaze.

“If I find out you’ve been lying about any of this, for any reason,” he said, the words like sandpaper in his throat, “I will make sure you never write for a Gotham paper again.”

If Vicki was cowed or disgusted by this threat, she didn’t show it. Her expression held more obvious pity than it had for any of the prior conversation.

“You really loved him,” she said. It was a statement and not a question.

“Westside General,” he said, to confirm.

She nodded. “In an hour?”

“Now,” he said, standing abruptly. Her hand pulled away from his knee as if burnt, shoved away by the sudden motion. If he was going to do this, he wanted to get it over with.

“Alright.” Vicki rose and tucked the folder under her arm again, a clear sign she had no intention of surrendering the papers to him to keep. It didn’t matter, since the searches could be repeated. “I’ll meet you there? Main entrance? I’ll bring Sanchez. I know he’s freelance, but I trust him more than the staff photographers.”

 _No_ , was what Bruce wanted to say. It felt like his life had turned into one long string of things he didn’t want. Maybe it always had been, and he’d just had distractions or brief reprieves that lulled him into false security the past several years. But there was little point in this torturous excursion if it wasn’t documented enough to avoid a repeat.

And for the first time since she’d dumped all the details into his lap, it occurred to him that as distasteful as it was for him, that there was an actual boy lying in that hospital bed without a name or a family. A family that was possibly worried, wondering where he was, hoping he was okay. That itself was worth pursuing; maybe someone else could have a happy ending.

“Vicki,” he said, when she was halfway to the threshold of the room. The moment of clarity did little to ease the tightness in his chest. “Of course I loved him. He was my son.”

“I’m sorry,” she said with a small shrug, like she didn’t know what to do or say for once. “I’ll see you there and then we can forget any of this ever happened.”

She  _meant_  the situation today and he knew it, but it was impossible to say how intertwined it all was for him and that forgetting was the last thing he’d ever be able to do.

* * *

Westside General was not one of the hospitals Bruce Wayne was very familiar with, but it was a hospital and that was enough. The smell and atmosphere, the furniture in the lobby and waiting rooms that was a cross between airport and hotel— it was just variations on the same details.

Some of his earliest memories were from Gotham Memorial. He had one hazy memory of sitting on a couch in his father’s office, flipping through a comic book and eyeing the model heart on the desk until Thomas had noticed and given it to him to pry apart and rebuild. He had no idea how old he’d been, no context of age or surrounding events.

Recently, it had been visiting Babs. The rehab center she was living in was still very much like a hospital. And before that, he’d gone in and out of Leslie’s clinic more times than he could count.

So, striding through the broad hallways of Westside with Vicki Vale next to him and the photographer David Sanchez right behind them, the fact that it was a hospital didn’t make him anxious.

What made him feel like he was so tightly coiled that he was curling in on himself, despite his perfect posture and long gait, was the fact that they were now merely eight doors away from the room where a boy who supposedly looked like Jason was sleeping.

The sticky visitor tag with his name and room number of their destination was torn on one edge, where it had stubbornly refused to come away from the backing before he affixed it to his suit. He stopped when Vicki did, at the nurse’s station, and listened while she briefly explained.

The nurse on-duty regarded them with widening eyes, and then a cool and appraising frown.

“I heard he…” Bruce stepped in, when Vicki glanced expectantly at him. And it had to be him pushing things forward now or this wasn’t going to work. He’d almost said ‘looks like my son’ but it stopped in his throat. “I heard from Miss Vale he was improving slowly and there’s been some rumor we were connected somehow. I’d like to see him, and his doctor, and see if there’s anything I can do to help— hospital bills, searching for relatives.”

At that, the nurse’s coldness melted away. She nodded. “I’ll page the attending.”

They waited at the desk, not going to search for seats in the meantime. Minutes on the clock ticked by and Bruce inconspicuously studied the desk. Cataloging the things there was something to do that wasn’t simply twiddling his thumbs and dealing with his own thoughts. Vicki kept checking the slender watch on her wrist and once, hid a yawn. Sanchez was the only one who seemed actually busy, adjusting and cleaning a lens after switching filters on the camera. But maybe it was pretense, too.

Finally, a lab-coated doctor rounded the corner and shook their hands and Bruce smiled out of habit while Sanchez’s shutter was clicking. Vicki had a notepad out and Bruce maintained his act almost from muscle memory. Even the words were rote, like an old script to fall back on.

The doctor gave them mere bones of information, nothing more. He did agree to let them briefly visit the boy, once Bruce’s end of the situation had been also given in mere framework. There was an art to how much to share.

At the door, they were warned that the boy was never awake for long and that they didn’t have permission to try to wake him. Bruce felt like most of the conversation had flown by, but got the distinct impression that if the boy woke on his own they were desperate for anything new he might say.

Bruce did not mean to take a breath to steady himself, but he did anyway, and ignored the sidelong look Vicki gave him when the doctor pushed open the door. This was just some poor kid who needed help. That was all. The doctor was saying something about a fever and they stepped into the small room in a line.

Five feet away from the bed, Bruce’s heartbeat stuttered and his world stopped.

There was a boy under a thin white sheet and a beige blanket, with an IV in his arm and his hands wrapped in gauze. His face was pale and his dark hair curled at the ends. There was a tiny, pale scar that curved over the left underside of his cheek he’d taken from a flashing knife his third week in the mask. Bruce had almost benched him then and there. The kid had argued it was just a nick, hadn’t let Alfred stitch it up just to prove it wasn’t that bad. Otherwise, maybe it wouldn’t have scarred.

It was Jason.

“Mr. Wayne? Mr. Wayne.” He distantly registered Vicki’s voice and her hand on his upper arm. “Bruce!”

He started and stared at her, for only a half-second. It was all the time he could afford away from the face of the boy on the bed.

“I’m surprised but relieved you came by, Mr. Wayne,” the doctor was saying, without looking at them. Vicki’s attempts at getting his attention must have been harsh whispers. “I don’t mean to sound insensitive, but we all thought the resemblance was rather startling.”

The click of Sanchez’s camera sounded behind them.

“Out,” Bruce ordered. That got the doctor’s attention and the man turned.

“What’s that?”

“Out,” Bruce said again harshly. “Everybody out.”

The doctor looked stunned and Bruce could hear Vicki whispering to Sanchez. The camera stopped clicking but nobody left the room.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Wayne, but this patient isn’t–”

Bruce had done long endurance training and if necessary, could stand without moving for hours even in extreme weather conditions or while otherwise impaired. There was a lot he could physically take before he was worn down.

But if he didn’t sit soon, his legs were going to give out.

It was Jason.

He didn’t know how or why.

It was  _Jason_.

He couldn’t talk for long seconds while the others shifted awkwardly, uncertain how to handle his reaction.

_It was…_

“This is my son,” Bruce said, his voice firm with conviction even though his body felt like he might topple under a slight breeze. “I don’t…I have no idea how this…”

“Mr. Wayne,” the doctor cautioned, raising an eyebrow. “Perhaps we should take a break outside the room and get you some water? I’ll take it the likeness is—”

“This is my son,” Bruce repeated stubbornly. His mind was scrambling for something, anything to say or do before he had to be dragged out of the room. Before somebody made him  _leave_  Jason, again. “He has a scar on the inside of his right arm, above the elbow. It’s from a burn.”

The doctor looked skeptical and didn’t move to check, his face now clouded with professional concern.

“Please,” Bruce said. He was not the kind of man to beg but that was  _Jason_  and he could practically see a nurse calling security as soon as the doctor stepped out into the hall. If he fought, here, as Bruce, all it would get was sedation and possibly arrest. Even as Bruce Wayne, he’d have to deal with that for a few hours at a minimum before trying some other tactic. His mind was making backup plans already, even while he couldn’t tear his gaze off Jason’s face.

 _Jason’s_  face, pale and fevered and his nostrils obscured by cannula, whose heart rate was beeping steadily while another machine monitored his blood pressure and oxygen levels.

The doctor must have seen the fight all over Bruce’s bearing, because he relented and leaned over the bed to check. Maybe it was just to prove him wrong and get him out of the room sooner.

“Holy shit,” the man breathed out instead. He spun with a shocked expression and the camera shutter clicked again and this time, it was Vicki who hissed at Sanchez.

“Out,” Vicki ordered. “Bruce, there’s a story here and I want it but I’ll wait outside.”

A second later, it was just Bruce and the doctor and Jason in the room.

“He has a group of freckles on his left ankle,” Bruce said flatly, still fighting for  _enough_  proof that he wouldn’t be chased out in another minute or two. It was the freckles that forced him to fumble backward for a chair and sit down.

The last time he’d looked, the skin those freckles rested on was in shreds and bloodied and burned.

Wordlessly, the doctor checked the ankle, too, and muttered another swear to himself and looked at Bruce.

“I don’t know how,” Bruce said helplessly, at the mix of awe and accusation.

“You are one lucky son of a bitch,” the doctor exhaled. “Whatever’s going on.”

“How bad is it?” Bruce forced himself to ask. He’d gotten the feeling earlier that not everything was being disclosed, but now he had a right to know and he  _had_  to know.

“Pneumonia is clearing up,” the doctor said. “Fever’s not running as high, for about a full twenty four hours now. He’s definitely on the mend. He’s got lacerations and abrasions on his hands and feet that are healing well, and it’s hard to tell how much of his confusion and aphasia is psychological and how much is from oxygen deprivation.”

Bruce nodded but he didn’t retain much beyond ‘on the mend.’

It was Jason.

“I’m going to…” the doctor hesitated. “I’m going to make some calls and finish my rounds. I’ll give you some time, before we try to sort this out.”

Whatever the reason the doctor felt confident leaving him alone with Jason, after the earlier suspicions, Bruce didn’t care. He didn’t care and he couldn’t manage words anymore and he just wanted the man to shut up and leave.

The door shut softly and Bruce, already sitting, fairly collapsed against the chair frame. Even if he’d wanted to move, he couldn’t have. He sat and sat and sat and stared the whole time, almost without blinking, at Jason’s face and tousled hair and just how perfect and alive and unbloodied he was.

It wasn’t until he heard his own shuddering exhale of breath, loud in the quiet room, that he acted and sprang out of the chair and froze again with his fingers just an inch from Jason’s brow.

If his fingers made contact and this wasn’t real, it was going to vanish and he’d wake up or it would be some kind of trap or trick and losing Jason would start all over again.

Then Jason sighed in his sleep and Bruce buried his fingers in real and soft hair. He found he couldn’t pull his hand away and he stood there, unmoving.

Under his palm pressed against warm scalp, Jason shifted and edged closer to Bruce with a small noise. A second later, his eyelids fluttered and Jason, Jason Todd who Bruce had carried lifeless and then lowered into the ground in a polished box, looked up at him with sleepy and disoriented blue eyes.

He gave him a slow, happy smile.

“Bruce,” Jason said, his mouth sounding dry.

It was Jason. It was Jason’s voice and his hair and his crooked smile and his long eyelashes.

“Hey,” Bruce answered, which was stupid but he couldn’t find any other words.

“My dad,” Jason said, like he was claiming him instead of asking for somebody else. “B.”

And he fell back asleep, just like that, like  _he_  was the one relieved.

Bruce reached once with his foot for the chair and it was just beyond the toe of his shoe. He gave up and sat on the edge of the bed. It sagged a little under his weight but he didn’t have to let go or move away.

He wasn’t sure how long this was going to last and he wasn’t sure how long he’d been sitting there, when in a sudden moment of panic he realized that he had zero explanation and could be using up all the limited time they had and he hadn’t even called Alfred.

Alfred, who he’d left at the manor with minimal explanation of what was going on. He wanted to deal with things first and then talk them over.

Without disentangling his hand from Jason’s hair, he slipped his phone out of his pocket. The screen was still cracked from earlier, a fine spiderweb of lines over half the glass. He navigated to the contact by memory more than sight and held it near his ear.

“Master Bruce?” Alfred answered.

“Al…I uh,” Bruce found it hard to breathe, very suddenly. “I need you. Westside General, room 348.”

And the older man didn’t demand an explanation. He said simply, “I’ll be right there.”

Bruce dropped the phone onto the side table and then didn’t move. He didn’t think he ever wanted to move again.

_It was Jason._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably a bit longer before the next update, but I wanted to give you guys SOMETHING. Thank you for comments! I am way behind but should eventually catch up on replying to stuff.


	5. Chapter 5

The visitor lot was too far from the main entrance.

The main entrance was too far from the elevator.

The elevator was too far from Room 348.

Alfred Pennyworth was not a man who often looked rushed, but he did know how to hurry. And with hastened steps, he covered the ground between car and room.

He could count on his fingers how often Bruce had sounded rattled over the phone, how many times Alfred had heard something close to panicked gasping that didn’t involve toxins of some kind. And that meant it was serious.

When he came around the corner, following the signs for blocks of room numbers, Bruce standing in the hall with one foot propping open a door did nothing to allay his concern.

Richard? Miss Gordon? The Commissioner? Leslie Thompkins?

There were so few reasons but they were all such significant ones.

“What’s the matter?” Alfred asked, finally slowing to a stop immediately in front of Bruce. The younger man made no movement to let him in. That meant it was  _very_  serious. Instead, Bruce twisted so he could more fully face Alfred and still keep the door propped open.

“I don’t know how to explain,” Bruce said, in a warning tone. There was a strange brightness to his eyes and Alfred restrained himself from automatically checking for a fever, and the rate of Bruce’s pulse. “But I think…I think it’s…”

Now Alfred wasn’t concerned about the others. Bruce was still in his shirt from that morning, though his jacket was missing, but Alfred snatched his hands and checked for a hospital admittance bracelet on his wrists anyway. Bruce didn’t even seem to notice.

“We might have him back,” Bruce said, insistently. “I think it’s him. I don’t know how it could be, but I think it’s him.”

“Master Bruce,” Alfred said, his brow furrowed as he tried to make heads or tails of it. “What are you talking about?”

Bruce glanced over his own shoulder into the room and then back at Alfred. “I need to, I need to know you’re ready.”

“Master Bruce,” Alfred said, now genuinely alarmed.

Bruce lowered his voice and ran a hand through his hair. It was already mussed beyond helping with a comb.

“Alfred, I think it’s Jason. He looks like him and I don’t know how I’m sure, but I am. I know it doesn’t make any sense, I know. But Al, I’m  _sure_  it’s him.”

Once, many years ago, Bruce had confessed to Alfred in a moment of introspection that he often felt overwhelmed by the nature of his chosen work and the darkness inherent in it. They both understood he was not talking about the physical blackness of night, but the suffocating weight of human depravity at its most raw.

And Alfred had empathized with him, having dealt with the worst parts of Gotham alongside him for some time, and with his own ugly memories of war. And in war, he’d had comrades. Their support system far below the halls of Wayne Manor was much smaller. He had also taken the rare opportunity to venture a caution that Bruce might  _actually_  hear and give heed to.

They had both understood they were not discussing the time of day, but Bruce had misunderstood the caution and Alfred’s varied small attempts to correct it had fallen on deaf ears. It may have been a selective deafness.

Bruce had taken it as some sort of warning about the proximity to moral slackness, a failing of character. Alfred supposed it wasn’t the worst thing to be cautious about, though it was not something he was often concerned for in Bruce.

No, Alfred had been quietly attempting to express his own concern for Bruce’s  _sanity_. He didn’t fear that Bruce’s sense of right and wrong would be bent or broken as much as that the intense bond to his code would eventually create a strain that Bruce alone could not bear. He was not a man to easily seek help, and he often came in contact with compromising toxins and experiences that would have shattered weaker men.

In the midst of his own raging grief, Alfred had been silently watching Bruce for signs of this in the wake of Jason’s passing. It might be the final blow that Bruce could not shoulder and still rise again.

Now, in the hospital hallway, staring into Bruce’s earnest and unwavering eyes, while the words poured out of him disjointed and so far from the measured, steady way he usually spoke, Alfred felt a tremble of cold fear run through his own limbs.

This was the summation of his worst nightmares: his son slipping away before his eyes, with no recourse.

“Master Bru—”

“Bruce? Bruce!” A small, scared voice came from the room behind Bruce.

And Alfred’s frozen heart beat its way to a thaw.

He  _knew_  that voice.

“Right here, Jay,” Bruce said, like it was a day seven months before and all the time between was merely some horrid mistake. Bruce turned back into the room, leaving the door open for Alfred to follow.

Slowly, cautiously, a savage hope bloomed in his chest and Alfred stepped into the small hospital room hardly daring to think.

And there, right in front of his old and weary eyes was a sight that made him feel twenty years younger. No, that wasn’t quite right. It made him feel ageless, suspended from time itself.

Bruce was leaning over the hospital bed, partially obscuring his view, brushing back the boy’s hair and assuring him he was still there, right there, and wasn’t going anywhere.

His view was not too obscured to see and know that it was Jason.

Jason, who quieted immediately and let his eyes drift closed again, his bandaged hand trailing an IV cord and gripping Bruce’s wrist.

There was a chair against the wall and Alfred sank into it with a hand pressed over his mouth. He didn’t know what noise he was holding in, out of habit or instinct, or maybe it was just an attempt to keep breath in his body.

Seconds later, his hand dropped and he managed just, “How?”

Bruce glanced at him without moving an inch from the bed that he’d ended up half-sitting on.

“I don’t know,” he said plainly. “This is…this is only the second time he’s been awake since I got here. I don’t know. Are you alright?”

“Of  _course_  I’m bloody alright!” Alfred exclaimed. The idea that  _this_  joyous and impossible thing would harm him in some way was ridiculous. “Are you…is it certain?”

“He’s been asking for me since they brought him in,” Bruce said, his back to Alfred now. “He has scars, and freckles, and we can run blood tests but Al, I know it’s him. I really think it is.”

There was a mix of confidence and hesitancy in Bruce’s voice, a kind of unusual worry, and Alfred suddenly remembered what he’d said on the phone.

_I need you._

Bruce hadn’t moved from Jason’s side, the gauze-covered fingers still wrapped around his wrist and his own hand against Jason’s head, but the man kept talking and now picking up a kind of frantic speed.

“I should run blood and DNA. And fingerprints, I have them at the Manor. Dental, too. Anything the police tried to do. And I should check the, uh…the…I should check the gravesite. This could be anything and we don’t know, it could be…”

Alfred had stood intending to step forward, to be the voice of reassurance for Bruce that the younger man had just been for the boy in the bed. He knew his role and he knew how fiercely Bruce could fight against the reality of good things.

But the words settled in as he stood and the tender sprout of hope withered within him.

Reality.

Things like this did not happen.

Things like dreams you wanted so badly they’d consume you alive while you dreamt them, stolen genetic material, clever physical mimics, illusions, traps…these things happened.

“But I  _know_  that it’s him,” Bruce cut himself off.

“Run the tests,” Alfred said, his voice harsher than he meant for it to sound. He stepped up beside Bruce but fought and won against the desire to pat the boy’s hand, to arrange the blankets again. Bruce looked over with an expression like Alfred had slapped him. “Master Bruce,” he said, trying to ease the edge out of his tone. “There could be half a dozen explanations, none of them pleasant. But we ought to know the truth before we rush into anything.”

Bruce faltered. His hand came away, in slow centimeters, from the boy’s brow. Alfred hated that he couldn’t just accept it, but it was feeling more like a day fraught with terror than a gift and he couldn’t ignore his misgivings.

Not when ignoring meant potentially re-living such a loss.

“It’s him,” Bruce protested, but Alfred could hear the gradually fading strength of the conviction. It was turning into question now, into pleading. “It’s him, Alfred.”

What he wanted from Alfred, Alfred could not in good conscience give him. There were different kinds of being needed, not all of them comfortable or easy, and what was needed here were frankness and facts.

Knowing what was needed did not make it any less difficult. In all his years of service to the Wayne family, Alfred had often felt lonely in his responsibilities but he’d rarely felt as starkly alone as he did just in that instant. To stand beside the bed of a boy who looked and sounded like his dead grandson and refuse to calm the fears of the man looking at him, waiting for his trusted word…

Alfred found himself weeping, a hand over his eyes for the burden and shame of it.

“Alfred,” Bruce said, audibly torn.

Alfred turned from him and struggled to compose himself. The last thing he needed to do was make this any more difficult.

“Run the tests, Master Bruce,” he said again, when he could swallow and speak without sounding choked. “Please. Do whatever you ought to do to be certain.”

“I will,” Bruce said and it was a balm to Alfred’s battered spirit that the younger man had apparently rallied rather than breaking. His tone was decisive again. “But it  _is_  him, Alfred. We’ll prove it.”


	6. Chapter 6

The click-clacking of over a dozen keyboards filled the wide, cubicle-divided office. Clark Kent pecked at the backspace key with a frown and checked his handwritten notes again. Sometimes he wished one of his super skills was handwriting because it definitely was _not_ , and he had a habit of rushing. The name was definitely illegible which meant having to make calls or emails to track the correct spelling down.

He sighed and his cell phone buzzed in his pocket. He tipped it out to look at the screen, hoping it was Lois.

Clark blinked at the screen. The ID said it was Bruce, whose number he had for emergencies. They texted or used JLA comms but Bruce hardly ever _called_.

“Hello?” he answered, leaning over his desk. “Everything okay?”

He was _hoping_ for a yes, or a dismissive noise, and then Bruce bluntly launching into whatever he’d called about. Clark had small talk and pleasantries drilled into him as a way of life from a young age; Bruce tended to reserve them for people he didn’t like or trust and only in public. 

Clark was, at the least, glad he wasn’t in that category…anymore.

“No,” Bruce said. “And yes. It’s hard to tell.”

Before he’d finished, Clark knew this wasn’t something to handle at his desk. The tone alone would have given it away, if not the indecisiveness.

“Just a second,” Clark said, navigating through the maze of low blue cubicles toward the stairwell. “Finding somewhere private.”

“How long could it _possibly_ take you?” Bruce asked and Clark was reassured by the return to irritation. Whatever was going on wasn’t awful, then. Bruce tended to not waste time on things like displaying emotion when something was dangerous.

“Okay,” Clark said, letting the thick metal door close and latch behind him. He was alone on the concrete landing and a quick check with his hearing told him no one else was on the stairs for several floors up or down. “Shoot.” He cringed right after he said it; sometimes he wanted to kick himself.

Bruce’s intonation changed, low and serious now. “I…I need you to do something for me. I need your help.”

Clark had warning alarms going off inside his head, too loud to even consider teasing him about the rarely used phrases. He was about to promise to do anything, whatever it was, when Bruce spoke again.

“It’s about Jason.”

And now the warning alarms were louder than most explosions. In the past half a year, Clark was lucky if he got Bruce to come close to _talking_ about Jason, much less saying his name. He’d tried, too. He was aware that he lacked the perspective of experience, but was determined to at the very least be available and he hated watching the self-destructive spiral Bruce had headed down. 

Danger of world conflict aside, he was still haunted by the fact that he’d played even a small role in protecting the criminal appointment of the Joker as an ambassador right afterward, even though he hadn’t known until right in the middle of things what had just happened in Ethiopia.

“What can I do?” Clark asked. “Do you need to talk? Are you at home?”

“I’m at a hospital,” Bruce answered, sounding distracted as he said it. “I need you to go to Jason’s grave. I need to know if anything looks unusual.”

The warning alarms were just now one continuous shriek. 

“Are you…are you okay?” Clark asked, now thoroughly confused. “Are you hurt?”

He wondered suddenly if Bruce was high on painkillers. He’d seen that once, in the Watchtower medical bay after a mission, and it had been a little unsettling just how much was pumped into Bruce before it seemed to have any effect. 

“You know where it is?” Bruce asked. “You remember?”

For a second, Clark was confused. He shook his head to clear it and pulled his glasses off with his free hand, his face turned toward the wall. Nobody was in the stairs and somehow it felt easier to think without them on.

“The grave,” Clark realized. “I remember. Right now? Or tonight?”

If Bruce wasn’t just going to come out and _say_ he was too injured to go anywhere in the suit, Clark could worm it out of him in other ways.

“Right now,” Bruce said. “If you can. And Clark?”

“Still here,” Clark said. He was climbing the stairs toward the roof already. He could go faster but it tended to mess up phone signals. 

“Check inside the…” Bruce paused and lowered his voice. His tone had a weird quality now. “Inside the coffin.”

“Bruce,” Clark said, startled. “Bruce, are you sure you’re okay? What are you doing at a hospital? _Which_ hospital? I’m coming to talk to you after this, not calling, and I’ll just find you if you won’t tell me.”

“Westside General, 348,” Bruce answered. “I have to go.”

The line went dead. 

The roof was clear and Clark took off, after leaving his work clothes in a nook under the Daily Planet globe. 

It was only minutes later he was standing in a memorial park, rows of headstones stretching out around him in the damp November chill. The few towering oaks were naked, their leaves cleared from the grass but brown and slowly rotting beneath the trunks where no one had bothered to rake them.

Despite telling Bruce he remembered, it actually did take him a row or two to find the grave. It was next to a taller white marble one with _Catherine Todd_ engraved on it. 

When Clark checked the name and dates twice, he froze. There was a mound of frigid dirt, packed down and free of grass, right in front of the gray stone with Jason Todd’s name. It was bare and clearly recently disturbed, still muddy with recent rain.

Bruce’s request on the phone was starting to concern him for entirely different reasons.

And then Clark looked inside the coffin.

His vision didn’t play tricks on him, even when peering through thick earth and wood. If something was lead-lined, it was a black spot to him, and that was it. There wasn’t an obscured quality like bubbled glass or water with normal vision.

So when he focused and it was empty, _entirely_ empty, he both knew what he was seeing was accurate and still had to close his eyes and then check again. He ran up and down the length of the box, looking for broken clasps or any other signs of forced entry.

The irregular circle of dirt didn’t seem big enough for someone to have hauled the entire thing up and put it back. And one of the few details he’d gotten out of Bruce after Jason’s death was that the box was supposedly impossible to break into without setting off some sort of alarm— it seemed easier for Bruce to talk about the mechanics of something around Jason than about Jason himself. 

Clark, cape blowing in the wind, actually dropped to the ground when he saw it. 

A hole in the coffin, splinters and shredded fabric lining, right beneath the bald dirt. It was small and the fragments had fallen inward, and were still in the box. The lid was sagging under the weight of the earth, already broken and compromised.

Somebody, or something, had dug _out_ of the…

_Oh, God…_

Clark could go fast and he could go _fast_. He went high enough to not cause disastrous wake in the bay beneath, retrieved day clothes from the Planet building, and was adjusting his tie in a third floor hospital bathroom before the minute was out. He could have gone straight to the window of 348 in the suit and cape, but he needed those extra forty-five seconds of travel to think.

How did he just _tell_ Bruce something like that? He had no idea how much Bruce even knew to begin with; clearly something, or he wouldn’t have sent Clark to look. 

Clark walked the hallway at a normal, human pace and was glad his press badge was still clipped to his pocket when he passed two people with visitor stickers on their shirts. The press badge at least was keeping nurses or security from stopping him and redirecting him to downstairs.

He didn’t even know, technically, who to say he _was_ visiting. He was pretty sure that was a kind of thing they asked.

The room number was on a navy placard next to a dark wood door and Clark looked down the hall one way and then the other. Far down at the opposite end, he could make out a few people arguing with police officers and others in business suits.

He listened, for a brief moment, before knocking on the door.

“—situation without precedent.”

“So, do we transfer custody to the State?”

“Custody of _who_? On paper, he’s a non-entity.”

“So, does Mr. Wayne have any legal ties?”

“Are you trying to get him out of the room? He’s the father, legally, if the kid is alive. The doctor is already sharing patient information. Until we know what we can do or what even happened, I’m not sure we want the legal battle.”

“Why would the doctor do that? What’s his name?”

“And get ourselves sued? No. The kid recognized him, Wayne gave information that was considered a positive ID. The nurse and two doctors have confirmed the kid’s vitals have stabilized since Wayne showed up. He’s not additionally stressed, for what it’s worth. The opposite.”

“So, you’re suggesting we hold off?”

“Hold off on _what_? Of course we all want answers, but we don’t have any legal action here. Not yet.”

Clark had heard enough for his minor suspicion to turn into full-blown assumption. It was assumption that defied all odds, but it was hard to argue with facts.

He knocked on the thick door and a second later, it was cracked open and then pulled back enough for him to slide in.

The door clicked shut behind him almost immediately and his eyes were drawn instantly to the boy asleep in the hospital bed. He was surrounded by various monitoring equipment and bandaged in some places, but otherwise looked like only a mildly ill Jason Todd. It was a confirmation of his assumption, his suspicion, and he felt in the moment far more mild shock than he probably should have.

“What did you find?” Bruce asked, and Clark tore his eyes away with some effort. 

Bruce looked like crap. His hair was disheveled, his shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow, his tie loose. For a man capable of almost constant camera-ready presence, even just minutes out of the cowl, it was a definite indication of how the morning had gone for him.

Clark swallowed and waited a second, and realized the only reason Bruce wasn’t pressing was because he hadn’t noticed Clark’s hesitance. Bruce’s gaze was steadily resting on Jason; whatever news Clark had, Bruce was half-afraid to hear it.

And for all his reluctance, Clark decided to lead with what he hoped was good news first. 

“The coffin is empty,” he said. “The headstone isn’t damaged and there’s some recently disturbed earth, still muddy, no grass buds. It’s not a big patch, either.”

Bruce slightly, visibly relaxed and met Clark’s eyes, running a hand through his own hair at the same time. 

“Thank you,” Bruce said. He paused and Clark winced under that scrutinizing frown. “But there’s more. What else?”

There was a chair next to the hospital bed and another in the corner of the room. Clark gestured, a little helplessly, to one of them even though he suspected while doing so that Bruce was going to refuse.

“You might wanna sit down,” Clark suggested.

Bruce’s frown deepened and Clark could hear his heart rate speeding up. Clark sort of wished he _did_ have news about DNA theft or cloning or something equally crazy, because those were somehow less horrible. 

“Clark,” Bruce said, in that voice that reminded Clark of his Pa scolding him when he was little, dragging his feet about chores or getting dressed for school. It was a weird thing to notice in a friend but it prodded him to go on, trusting that Bruce could handle it at least as well as he could.

“The thing is,” Clark said, glancing at the floor and then looking over at Jason. It was surreal to see him there, breathing and flushed with fever, so impossibly happy that it almost overshadowed the details surrounding it. Maybe it did. It was a good distraction, anyway, until Clark looked at the hands resting on top of the blanket. 

They were bandaged, wrapped in gauze and tape. 

Clark lost and then regained his voice, while Bruce waited.

“Whoever was in that coffin dug themselves out,” Clark said, the words faint to his own ears. He felt detached from what he was saying, from who he was and where he was, staring at Jason’s hands. “The disturbed ground wasn’t large enough for anyone to have come in from the top, and the damage looked like it started inside and not out.”

 _Stop, stop, stop,_ Clark’s mind shrieked at him. He startled out of his odd dissonance and spun to look at Bruce.

Bruce was staring directly where Clark had just been looking, at Jason’s hands. At the bandages there. He was a ghostly, clammy white, his eyes wide. His breathing was off, not paced well.

“Bruce?” Clark asked, now worried that the man was going to just pass out right in front of him. 

But instead of collapsing, Bruce whirled on one heel and drove his shoulder into the door of the tiny private bathroom. The light was still off, the door halfway open, when Clark heard vomiting. 

Clark took a step forward and then stopped and rocked back on his shoes. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do here, how much of an intrusive of privacy would be construed as being supportive instead of overstepping. And he wasn’t sure Bruce wanted to see him, considering what kind of messenger Clark had just become.

The long silence afterward convinced him to move and intrusiveness be damned. He pushed the door open gently, one hand reaching for the light and then he decided against it and left it off.

Bruce was kneeling in front of the toilet, his forehead on his arm folded across the seat, and he was motionless except for the trembling of his shoulders. It took Clark longer than it should have to process that Bruce was crying. 

Feeling terribly wretched and useless, Clark found a plastic cup and filled it with water and left it on the sink lip and then reached over and flushed the toilet. Bruce slumped back against the wall, narrowly missing the hanging emergency pull-chain, and buried his face in his hands. 

Clark crouched across from him and waited. 

“It’s him,” Bruce said, his voice broken and quiet, “And how the hell is that fair to him?”

“Maybe he won’t even remember,” Clark ventured, shrugging. It was a slim and probably false hope, but it was something. 

For a long time, Bruce didn’t move or argue with the flimsy reassurance. He was as motionless as one of those gargoyles he had a habit of perching next to. Then, Bruce drew his sleeve across his eyes. His voice was steady again, but kind of hollow. “I wanted him back, Clark. But not like this, not for him to suffer more.”

“Stop,” Clark said firmly, startled enough to be sharp. Bruce had leaned forward to bury his face in his crossed arms, his knees propping them up. “If that’s actually Jason, and you seem to know already that it is, then you’re going to stop trying to find a way to blame yourself for all the worst parts of it and figure out a way to just be happy your son is alive. You wanted proof? I saw it, Bruce. The coffin is empty and nobody broke in. You take that and worry about the other parts later if you have to.”

He was relieved to see Bruce nod into his arms. He lifted his head and nodded again. 

“You’re right,” he said. “I can’t…I can’t…”

Clark never found out what he was going to say because in the room behind them, right outside the half-closed door, a voice called, “B? B? Bruce?” It sounded gradually more panicked with each syllable and Bruce was on his feet, scrubbing at his face, twice as quickly as he’d fled to the bathroom.

“I’m here, Jay,” he said, stepping around Clark and back into the room. “It’s okay. I’m right here.”


	7. Chapter 7

The sensation of something cold brushing across his forehead roused Jason from a fitful sleep. He’d been dreaming, again— it was always disjointed and strange dreams, with swelling terror at the repetition of mundane activities like opening a door or walking in the rain.

He pulled back, instinctively, from the hard object, but it followed him. The pillow did little to help and he blinked in the dim light.

“Shh, honey,” a voice said softly, from above him. “I’m Kelsey, the night shift nurse. Just taking vitals. I’ll be outta your way in a second.”

The tubes trailing from his nose and arm jogged his memory. He was in a hospital. He didn’t feel too great. His chest felt full of wet sand and his skin was uncomfortable. Without moving, he could see the nurse and the ceiling and then machines in his peripheral vision. The overhead lights were off and when the nurse stepped back, the solitude and darkness and struggle to breathe deeply were all too much like one of his nightmares.

He wanted somebody but not the stranger now checking an IV bag when he turned to search the room. He wanted to tell her that even if his chest hurt and he didn’t know what else was wrong, he didn’t want any of that painkiller shit in him and he’d be okay without it.

But he couldn’t make out the black text on the hanging bag and the words wouldn’t come out of his mouth, he didn’t think she’d understand or listen even if he could manage to talk. His throat stung, too, now that he thought about it.

He knew who _would_ understand and Jason felt a spike of terror again at the idea that he was alone. Hadn’t he promised he’d stay? And Jason couldn’t see him anywhere. It was dark outside, late at night; maybe he’d needed to go work. Maybe he was still angry. Jason had a vague idea that sometime recently he’d ignored instructions or an order. And that was usually why he ended up in a hospital bed.

Was he overseas? It wasn’t Dr. Thompkins’ place. He thought he remembered an airplane. But the nurse had sounded like a Gothamite. Maybe. Maybe she hadn’t and he was making it up. 

Not knowing made the loneliness even sharper and he gave up trying to piece things together.

“Bruce?” He could say that at least. If they weren’t in Gotham, he didn’t know why Bruce had left. And if they were in Gotham, he didn’t know why they hadn’t gone to Dr. Thompkins. Had something else happened? Was there something he didn’t know? Maybe Bruce being there had been a dream; was Bruce okay? Had there been some kind of bomb? He was pretty sure he remembered a bomb. “Bruce!”

“Shh, honey. He’s right there.” The nurse was still in the room. Jason had forgotten she was standing so close. He followed her pointing finger, craning his neck. Bruce was sleeping on a too-small couch by the window, with a view of the door. Jason was having trouble thinking but he knew vantage points still. “He’s been in the room ever since I got here. You want me to wake him up for you?”

“B,” Jason said, ignoring the nurse. He tried to make his voice louder and his throat hurt more. Bruce with his eyes closed frightened him for some reason. “B!”

The eyes snapped open and Bruce was sitting up in a second. His hair was matted on one side but Jason didn’t care; he watched the familiar sweep of the room and before Bruce had even finished, he was already on his feet and moving to the side of the bed.

“Hey, Jay,” he said softly, in the dim room.

Jason relaxed against the hand on his forehead. It was real, it wasn’t a dream, and even if nothing made sense it was okay now. 

“Be back in four hours,” the nurse said, setting a cup on the side table. “I brought some ice chips. Just call if you need anything.”

The door closed behind her and Bruce pulled a chair up and propped his elbow on the bed, resting his chin in his hand. Jason thought he looked tired. Jason _felt_ tired. He wasn’t sure when he’d been awake last but he still wanted to sleep for a week.

He wanted to ask about the IV, too, and he pulled on it with a finger while trying to figure out how. 

Bruce moved his hand away, gently. “It’s okay, Jay-lad. Just fluids and antibiotics.”

Jason sighed. He _knew_ Bruce would understand.

“How are you feeling?” Bruce asked. “Do you want some ice?”

Jason nodded. His throat hurt but his mouth was dry. Maybe that’s why it was hard to talk. A few seconds later, he was sucking on the frigid slivers as they melted. It wasn’t any easier to think of words. 

Bruce was yawning when Jason, with a frown, pieced together something that felt important.

“You…mad?”

He watched Bruce’s mouth clap shut and then flicker through a rapid series of expressions Jason’s head felt too thick to decipher. But not a good sign; Jason’s eyes were just filling with tears when Bruce firmly shook his head.

“No, of course not. No.”

As if to punctuate his point, he bent forward and leaned his forehead against Jason’s. It did more to convince Jason than the words did; Bruce had always been better with actions.

Relaxing, he could focus on taking one slow breath after another. None of them seemed deep or full enough and the oxygen hissing beside the bed told him it wasn’t just in his head.

Jason’s brow furrowed as he thought. He hated that he didn’t know what had happened. There was something, though, about not being able to breathe…something dusty and hot. No. Smoky.

Smoke.

“Jay? What’s wrong?”

Bruce sat up and Jason reached for him, to pull him back down. He wanted Bruce to stay put, to not leave, to not be too far away. He caught sight of his own hand, covered in gauze, and breathing became even harder.

Smoke. And his knuckles swollen, his fingers refusing to bend. His leg at the wrong angle. A timer flicking through seconds too quickly and a jumble of wires his clumsy hands couldn’t untangle even if he had time.

“Jason.” Bruce sounded far off.

His head hurt and he couldn’t move his left arm. His whole body was splintering, a jumble of pieces that didn’t fit together correctly anymore, and someone was crying for help. There was wicked, humorless laughter echoing in his bloodied ears.

A flash of metal rod, the wet _thunk_ and a crack beneath it. A floor slick with crimson and the explosion of wood planking and steel shelves and walls, like being caught in the middle of a firecracker.

The Joker.

Jason’s back to the bomb, the burn of a room turned to shrapnel piercing his cape and uniform. His boot full of sticky blood.

Then nothing but dark gray and smoke so thick it was like being underwater in the bay.

“Breathe, Jay,” he heard Bruce’s voice. He tried to say he couldn’t, that there was nothing to breathe, that it was going to _kill_ him. “Breathe.”

“Can’t,” he rasped, and then his lungs sucked in air anyway.

It wasn’t smoke. Oxygen slipped into him and there was a hand on his chest, something warm and steady and rhythmic against his back.

“Breathe,” Bruce said again. “In and out. Slow. In. Out.”

Jason obeyed.

He was half-sitting, slumped back against Bruce’s chest. Bruce was sitting behind him, one knee bent up at Jason’s left side and the other leg dangling off the hospital bed on the right. It was a hospital bed, in the hospital room, and not an overheated warehouse. 

Jason matched his breathing to the rise and fall of Bruce’s chest against his spine. The hand was still there, holding him up with grounding pressure.

“Breathe,” Bruce said again, near his ear when Jason let his head fall back against Bruce’s shoulder. He’d been hunched forward, curling in on himself. “That’s it, Jay-lad. Good. In. Out.”

“Hurts,” Jason complained between lungfuls. And it _did_. He ached from neck to floating ribs. 

“I know,” Bruce said, still somehow calm. “You’re alright. You’re being treated for pneumonia.”

That didn’t make _any_ sense but Jason nodded and kept working on even breaths, even if they felt shallow. He was exhausted and the room wouldn’t hold still. It was spinning wildly and he closed his eyes to shut it out. 

“I’m going to get up so you can lie back down,” Bruce said, shifting his weight. “You’ll be more comfortable. I’ll be right next to you.”

Jason shook his head and grabbed Bruce’s arm, the one resting like a harness across his sternum. 

“No. B.”

“Okay,” Bruce agreed, settling back. 

Jason interrupted his breathing pattern for a shaky exhale. He felt like he was trembling but it was hard to tell. But Bruce was there and he wasn’t mad, and he wasn’t moving away.

“Alfred is on his way,” Bruce said. “He’s bringing one of your blankets. Some of your clothes. He’s going to stay with us for a few hours. We won’t leave. Can you sleep?”

“No,” Jason said. Adrenaline was rushing through him now, his heart pounding. He could hear the rapid beat reflected on the monitor. Instead of making him feel ready to jump out of bed and fight, it was just leaving him exhausted and limp. His muscles felt sore and heavy. 

Gradually, with each inhale carrying a mix of sterile hospital and Bruce’s cologne and sweat, his heart returned to a normal pace. He thought maybe it was his imagination, but it felt like Bruce was holding him a bit tighter than he usually did, even when they’d dealt with fear toxin or something. He squirmed a little and Bruce’s arm slackened but didn’t let go.

“Sorry,” Bruce said. He’d sounded calm earlier but now Jason thought he sounded as exhausted as Jason felt. Jason didn’t want to sleep or didn’t think he could, but that didn’t alleviate the feeling. In fact, the more tension that ebbed out of Jason, the more he became aware of other sensations with the exhaustion. There was a sharp one he recognized almost instantly.

“M’hungry,” Jason said.

Bruce laughed, not hard or deep, but enough that his chest shook. “Of course you are,” he said. “Do you remember drinking broth earlier?”

Jason shook his head. “Awake?” he asked, thinking hard. There wasn’t even a scrap of memory of it happening. 

“Yes,” Bruce said. “Not talking, but awake. You held it yourself. You threw an empty Jell-O cup when it was gone.” 

“M’_hungry_,” Jason said again defensively, his stomach feeling tight. It was a nice distraction from how his lungs felt, at least. He started coughing right after he said it and his throat lit up with fiery stinging. He wondered how often he’d been coughing while asleep, if that’s what was making his throat hurt so much.

Bruce held up the cup with the ice chips when the coughing fit ended and Jason shook a few into his mouth. “Well. The hospital cafeteria is closed. I’ll have to ask what you can have.” 

“Food,” Jason said. Bruce moved to press the call button and Jason twisted his shoulder back to make sure Bruce wasn’t going to get up afterward. 

“I’m here as long as you need, Jay,” Bruce said in response to the shoulder digging into his ribs. “I’m glad you’re feeling better.” 

The panel on the bed rail to Jason’s left buzzed and a voice crackled through a staticky speaker. “Everything okay?”

“I’ve got a hungry kid in here,” Bruce said. “Is there anything he can eat?” 

“Let me check with your nurse,” the voice said, and then the speaker cut out. 

“Chilidog,” Jason said, snuggling back against Bruce. 

“We might need to wait on those, Jay-lad, but I promise we’ll get you one as soon as we can.” Bruce let his chin drop against Jason’s hair and his arm tightened again. “I’ll even let you have coffee, if you want.”

Jason grinned and enjoyed the weight against his scalp. It felt like the sort of thing that would keep him out of the reach of nightmares or memories. And Alfred was on his way, with stuff from home, and even if Jason wasn’t sure how to piece together all the bits of information that didn’t make sense, he could figure it out in the morning. Maybe his brain would be less foggy then, anyway. 

“Promise?” Jason asked. Chilidogs and a milkshake sounded _amazing_ , but he wasn’t going to let a cup of coffee slip by if Bruce was offering.

“Promise,” Bruce said. “We’ll go get some together.” 


	8. Chapter 8

Alfred Pennyworth was no stranger to late nights, so he didn’t find it especially unusual to be awake at nearly one in the morning and pulling out of the Manor drive. He slowed just past the turn to make sure the automatic gate latched shut.

What was unusual was that he had a small bag packed and resting on the passenger seat, full of Jason’s things. It was fortunate that the roads this far north of Gotham were mostly empty of traffic at this hour, because Alfred kept looking away to make sure the bag was still there.

After some brief conversation during which it became clear how reluctant Bruce was to leave the hospital, how much it cost him to offer to go run the tests himself, Alfred had insisted he take over. Blood was a matter of a simple finger prick and DNA was a cheek swab, both easily obtained in a matter of seconds. They had the supplies in a glovebox because they were who they were.

Always guarded.

Always prepared.

Except, Alfred supposed, for this: the tests he’d watched like a hawk in the cave, while filling the time with cleaning and polishing weapons and other tools, had come back as a positive ID for Jason Peter Todd.

And  _that_  was something he wasn’t sure what to do with or how to explain, only that it made him deliciously happy and mildly guilty for not being as certain as Bruce.

But, he supposed, it was better to  _know_  than wait and find out otherwise. Now, Alfred could rest in knowing that whatever bad news was bound their way, it would not be that of exposed false identity.

It was Jason, however that had come about.

And forty minutes ago, Alfred had made the first trip without tears into the boy’s preserved bedroom in months. He’d kept it minimally dusted but this was a  _cleaning_. Sheets stripped and replaced, furniture dusted and polished, the floor hoovered, the windows wiped down.

There was a sense of urgency now, of purpose and preparation. He dared not think of any end at the moment except that they were soon going to be bringing their boy home.

And not in a coffin, like the last time.

The bag on the passenger seat held pajamas, sweatpants and tee shirts, a few books, a new toothbrush and toothpaste, a worn hooded sweatshirt, a favorite blue and white checked knitted blanket. A Wayne relative had long ago made it for Bruce and it had been pulled out of a linen closet and passed down to Jason when they’d been personalizing his new room. He’d run his fingers over the intertwined strands of yarn and asked more than once if they were  _sure_  it was handmade.

It had still been folded at the end of the bed and Alfred packed it automatically, without considering if he ought to or not. It was Jason, and Jason would mend best with familiar and comforting things instead of generic hospital items.

If there was anything that caused his heart to ache right now, it was how many days the boy had spent alone in the room waiting for them to come.

He slowed before the bridge from Bristol into the upper west side of Gotham in case there was ice; it had been wet and cold recently, the rain bordering on sleet. The city lights shone over the river mouth below and he passed from winding, forested road into neon traffic.

Alfred was not the only one awake at one in the morning; it was early yet for Gotham. It was odd to be out and think that Batman  _wasn’t_  on a rooftop somewhere in the concrete jungle. Westside General was dwarfed by surrounding buildings and he only had to drive two flights up the parking garage to find a visitor’s spot. Earlier, he’d had to go all the way to the fifth floor.

The only open hospital entrance was the emergency department. Alfred navigated on foot around an ambulance in the bay and then a half-filled waiting room, with a bag slung over his shoulder. It was only when he passed a man in a suit, waiting with a woman in a dress and heels, that it occurred to him he ought to have packed something for Bruce.

It was, perhaps, a forgivable oversight considering the circumstances.

Giving a room number, a name, and obtaining a visitor pass was the work of a moment at the admitting desk. Alfred remembered a time when visiting hours were more strictly enforced, but it seemed those had gone away with the sleepless rhythm of the city.

His heart rose with him in the elevator and he knew that later there would be the sorting of emotions, the process of coping with any faults or failures, but for now he left them behind.

Now, he had the joyful task of ensuring Jason was comfortable and healing as quickly as could be, as well as watching over the miracle of a mended heart. He was of the opinion that if the world owed any man a miracle, it was Bruce— after how much he’d lost and bled and suffered for the city he loved.

The hospital halls here were much quieter than the ER; lights were dimmed except at station desks and waiting rooms, where they were turned to full brightness. The bustle of the day was vanished and replaced by the soft squeak of treaded shoes on tile floors, the faint beeping of equipment when a door was opened nearby.

Out of habit, he tapped his knuckles against the door before opening it, and then stepped into the room.

Most of the lights were off, as he’d expected. But the light directly overhead the bed was on and rather than a sleeping boy and a drowsy-but-rousing man, as he expected to find, Bruce was sitting in a chair next to the bed with the scruff of a five o’clock shadow. Jason was sitting up, his legs crisscrossed, and he was eating peanut butter crackers out of a plastic sleeve.

“Alfred!” Jason said, his eyes lighting up.

“Master Jason!” Alfred returned, greeting the boy’s open arms with a brief hug. Perhaps a tad longer than brief. He glanced at Bruce, half-wanting to scold him for not warning him ahead of time that Jason was far more coherent and alert. He let it go. Bruce looked fatigued but content and Alfred felt a pang of guilt, after all, that he had missed so much of the day for  _cleaning_  and on  _doubt_.

As if he needed more than Jason’s cheeky grin and eager acceptance of the open bag set beside him. The boy chewed a mouthful of crumbling cracker while he rifled through the bag and pulled out the blanket with a reverent sigh. He flipped it clumsily around his shoulders and Alfred helped untangle it from the IV tube.

“That’s the third pack of crackers,” Bruce said, nodding to the wrapper as Jason shoved the last one in his mouth and then sucked water through a straw.

“M’hungry,” Jason said, in a tone of plain complaint.

“I ought to have brought along some food,” Alfred said, enjoying the sight.

“The nurse said nothing heavy yet,” Bruce said, to Jason’s pleading glance. “But I’m calling Leslie in for a second opinion first thing in the morning.”

“I’ll make whatever you want and bring it from home,” Alfred told Jason, who patted the bed in front of him in a clear sign of welcome. Alfred perched on the bed obligingly and Jason abandoned the empty wrapper to tighten the blanket around himself and lean against Alfred, his head on Alfred’s shoulder. It was an unusual level of physical affection between them, but Alfred wasn’t going to protest just now.

“Missed you,” Jason said, in a voice hoarse with illness and disuse.

For a moment, Alfred’s gaze met Bruce’s and the agony must have been evident in his expression because Bruce’s own face was suddenly serious and pained. Almost as quickly, they both vanished into soft smiles, but Alfred still struggled to keep the emotion and guilt out of his voice when he patted Jason’s knee and replied, “I’ve missed you as well, Master Jason.”

Six long months, too long, and he’d stretched it out another fifteen hours. He could have stayed sooner, he could have come back earlier. But he was a stubborn old fool. Maybe Bruce wasn’t the only one who had trouble with good news.

Jason’s forehead, still a touch too warm, was still resting on his thin shoulder when the boy began coughing. He coughed and coughed, a deep and wet sound punctuated by wheezing breaths, until the coughing stopped and he all but sagged forward, limp.

“Tired,” he said faintly.

“Well, it’s late, and a young man like you ought to be sleeping,” Alfred said, standing and guiding Jason back to the pillows on the bed. The boy curled on his side and yawned, a corner of the blanket still wrapped around one fist.

“Stay?” Jason asked, sleepily looking from one to the other.

“I promised I would, Jay. Get some rest,” Bruce said, reaching out to tousle Jason’s hair. One of Jason’s bandaged hands, the one not gripping blanket, grabbed Bruce’s wrist to hold his arm in place.

“Of course,” Alfred added, when Jason kept one eye open to stare meaningfully at him. When Jason’s eyes both closed and his breathing evened out as much as it could be expected to, Alfred moved the bag off the bed and took the other chair.

Bruce gave the bag a significant nod. “The tests?” he asked, sounding confident. Alfred supposed the bag itself was proof enough. They’d not spoken much of any details over the phone or via text, out of paranoid habit.

“All positive,” Alfred said. “The duplicates as well.”

“Clark stopped by,” Bruce said, his voice low. He reached for a switch nearby on the wall and flicked the light over the bed off. “He said it was empty.”

The pause in the sentence and the dark, troubled frown on Bruce’s face when he said this were enough to let Alfred know there was more he wasn’t saying, perhaps didn’t want to say yet or in front of Jason even asleep, or to Alfred himself.

This brought another pang of the guilt that he ought to have been there sooner, remained longer, been less reserved. Alfred tried to brush the feeling aside; it was doing no one any good in the present moment.

He watched Jason, the boy’s face slack and peaceful in slumber; the rise and fall of his stomach with breath. It was troubled by a cough, this one brief and quickly passing. Jason had let Bruce’s hand fall away a bit earlier, and now he pulled the blanket closer to his chin.

And then to Alfred’s left, there was a quivering exhale. He looked over sharply to see Bruce with his head in his hands, his posture poor and tense.

This, perhaps, was something he could do to alleviate his own guilt. It was something he’d done almost as second nature for over thirty years of service now, giving him plenty of reason to shove his own thoughts aside.

“You were right,” Alfred said quietly. “It  _is_  him, Master Bruce. I’m sorry I doubted you.”

In response, the younger man sniffed and sat back in the chair with a clear sigh, as if a burden had been lifted. If his face was wet with a few tears, Alfred thought it best not to mention them.

“No, somebody needed to,” Bruce said. “And now we’re not putting it off. It’s done and we can move forward.”

“It’s late,” Alfred commented, though this was barely true for them. “You ought to rest if you can. I’ll sit and keep watch. I don’t think I could sleep at the moment anyway, and I’ve a feeling we’ll have a rather busy morning.”

Bruce nodded and stood, kissed Jason’s forehead and tiredly squeezed Alfred’s shoulder as he stepped around him to the small couch beneath the window.

“Wake me if anything happens,” Bruce said. Alfred doubted Bruce would sleep deeply enough to need help waking, but he gave his consent nonetheless.

Five minutes later, the room was filled with the sounds of mismatched gentle snores from before him and behind him.

Alfred found himself smiling in the dark.

It was Jason.

He was  _alive_.


	9. Chapter 9

Bruce shuttered the blinds over the hospital window as the sun reached a glaring, late autumn height. It was bright in that distant way that felt piercing and cold at once. He rubbed his neck, trying to ease out the tight pain there and through his left arm from sleeping on a hard couch with his head tucked at a bad angle. It wasn’t the worst thing he’d dealt with, not by far.

He’d do it again tonight, too, if they wanted to keep Jason another day. There was no way he was leaving for something as minor as sleeping in his own bed if Jason was here, possibly needing him at any moment.

Just a few feet away, Dr. Leslie Thompkins was quietly examining Jason. The boy was cooperating but still not talking much, and Bruce still had no idea how much he remembered or was aware of— he had no intention of letting him find out even a moment sooner than Jason was ready.

“Open,” Leslie instructed and there was a responsive, “Aaaahhh,” from Jason sitting up on the bed.

Bruce turned from the tangled blind cord and watched Leslie tuck her stethoscope and a penlight back into a black bag.

“It’s not a clean bill of health,” Leslie said, half to Jason. She gave Bruce a look that said _we need to talk_ , a raised eyebrow and sideways purse of her lips affair that made him feel like a teenager all over again, caught between her and Alfred and another school detention slip. “But if your chart is to be believed, you’re getting better and that’s what we want. I don’t know what your doctor here thinks, but if you can make it through the day without supplemental oxygen, I don’t see why they’d need to keep you after another night.”

Bruce actually didn’t know if he was stepping on that doctor’s toes by bringing Leslie in, but he didn’t really care. He trusted Leslie and the sooner Jason was fully in her care, and his own, the better. There were too many things he didn’t know or understand about the situation to have this additional factor outside of his control.

“I’m glad to see you,” Leslie added, running a hand over Jason’s tangled hair. “But I need to talk to Bruce and then find your attending and talk to him. Would you like to watch some TV?”

“No,” Bruce said, before Jason could answer. He ignored Leslie’s frown and Jason’s annoyed, scowling pout. It made the kid look five instead of fifte– sixteen. He was sixteen now. Bruce had spent his birthday sleeping, unable or unwilling to make himself get out of bed. Bruce cleared his throat and rubbed his aching neck again and gentled his tone. “No TV. We’ll have Alfred bring a movie or two later today. Read or sleep.”

He hefted Jason’s bag off the floor and set it beside him on the bed.

“Hardass,” Jason muttered. “Few minutes…won’t kill me.”

Jason was looking down at the selection of books Alfred had packed for him and Bruce was glad he didn’t see the color drain from Leslie’s face, the rapid glance of understanding she shot toward the TV and then in Bruce’s direction.

He didn’t see Bruce’s own moment of closing his eyes, finding his feet so he didn’t have to lean against something with the sudden sharp fear that shot through him.

Bruce held on, instead, to what the truth of the morning was: Jason alive, Jason slowly but steadily regaining language as he spent longer periods awake and coherent, Jason feeling well enough to grumble at him. He’d never been so grateful for the boy’s stubborn attitude.

“Reading is better for you anyway,” Leslie said, encouragingly. “Should have been my first suggestion, but I’m getting old and lazy. Bruce?”

She gestured to the door leading to the hospital hallway and Bruce wanted to refuse. He needed to talk to her about Jason, but even letting the boy out of his line of sight for a moment felt impossible.

Jason was sitting with his face already buried in a L’Engle novel, his nose free of the oxygen cannula since early in the morning. He tore open a package of dried fruit the nurse had cleared as good snack food and shook some directly into his mouth.

With effort, Bruce followed Leslie out into the hallway, where she looked him up and down with an appraising eye.

“Well. This is a new one,” she said shortly. “You’re certain it’s him?”

“I am,” Bruce said, feeling like it had become a sort of mantra dominating his conversations recently. “I have enough evidence.”

“That boy in there has not been dead for six months,” Leslie said, keeping her voice low. “But I can tell you right now he’s dealing with some major psychological trauma. His body is recovering as quickly as any otherwise healthy teenager’s might, but the communication issues concern me. He’s going to need a lot of help to recover from whatever happened to him. Do you have _any_ ideas of what you’re dealing with?”

Bruce still hadn’t managed to talk to Alfred about it, but Leslie’s unwavering gaze as she looked up at him told him he wasn’t putting it off any longer. It was possibly relevant information and Leslie needed to know, as Jason’s doctor, just as much as Alfred might. He wished the older man hadn’t gone to collect other things from the Manor and some lunch; he wasn’t looking forward to discussing this twice.

“Just some,” Bruce said, scanning the hallway for anyone close enough to overhear. “He’s had a panic attack already. I don’t know how much he remembers or if he’s even aware of the date. Superman checked the gravesite.”

“And?” Leslie prompted, concern blooming in her voice and eyes. He must have looked more upset than he thought if she was already using those mannerisms, the ones reserved for de-escalating situations.

“It was empty,” Bruce said, crossing his arms. Maybe it looked defensive but it felt more like not falling apart. “He dug himself out, Leslie.”

“God in Heaven,” she exhaled. “Does he remember? At all?”

“I don’t know,” Bruce said, shrugging a shoulder. “I don’t even know if he knows that he…”

He trailed off. He wanted to be back inside the room, keeping Jason company while he read; he wanted to be distracting himself from the complicated, terrifying facts of Jason’s return with the fact that he _was_ returned. He didn’t want to be standing in a hallway having this conversation.

“He isn’t ready,” Bruce said. “He’s barely talking again.”

“He needs to know,” Leslie said gently. “But I agree that right now might not be the best time to bring it up, not unless he starts asking questions. Let him finish recovering in other ways first.”

Bruce sort of _hated_ people telling him what to do, as a rule, but Leslie’s agreement was like an eased burden. And having that lightened should have made him feel better, but it just made him feel worn out. Alfred had urged him to sleep and then there had been little time for private conversation and Alfred hadn’t insisted on him leaving the room to carve the time or space for one. Bruce hadn’t pushed.

“I need to take him home,” Bruce said. The hospital was starting to seem like a cage, with constant interruptions and a need for vigilance. “You think he’ll be ready tomorrow?”

“Knowing the kind of equipment you have, I’d say he’s ready now,” Leslie said. “But his doctor here might not agree without information about that equipment being disclosed and considering the whirlwind of media attention you’re about to be in, I wouldn’t advise signing him out AMA. You could move him to the clinic, or Gotham Memorial, but there’s not much reason to put him through all that additional stress.”

“We can wait another day,” Bruce said. Even if uncomfortable, he could do patient. Especially if it was better for Jason. “Thank you for coming.”

“I _am_ happy for you,” Leslie said, her features softening out of that stern professionalism that she’d crafted into even her resting expression after so many years of Gotham. “For all of you. This is a miracle if I’ve ever seen one. I hope you can recognize that.”

“Of course I do,” Bruce snapped. His hand was already reaching back for the door when she put a hand on his arm to get his attention. He froze. “I’m sorry,” he muttered, almost under his breath. “I know. I don’t understand it, but I know.”

“Miracles aren’t _meant_ to be understood, Bruce,” Leslie said gently, pulling her hand back. “That isn’t the point. I’ve been worried for you, and for Alfred. Angry, a little, too, if I’m honest, but I think you knew that. But that’s my problem. And this is good news, _happy_ news, if it’s real. But you’ve seemed as tense as a scared rabbit since I got here. Have you been eating? Taking care of yourself at all?”

The shadow of scruff on his face and the fact that he was unshowered, wearing the same shirt and pants from the day before, said no. He had no idea where his tie or jacket had ended up and his neck ached and he couldn’t remember the last thing he’d eaten that wasn’t just a cup of burnt coffee a nurse had given him.

“I’m fine,” he said instead. And he was, he _would_ be, as soon as he could get Jason home and stop worrying that someone would show up and contest custody even for a few hours or days. He didn’t doubt he could settle it somehow, even taking the boy and leaving the country if it came to it, but there were so _many_ details to think about: Jason’s physical and mental condition and how the truth might affect either of those things topped the list.

“You can’t take care of him if you’re falling apart,” Leslie said, with a note of mild reproach. “And he _will_ notice. You know Jason.”

“I can’t leave him, Leslie,” Bruce protested, his spine stiffening.

He and Leslie had experienced a far rockier relationship than his relationship with Alfred, for all the ups and downs he’d had with Alfred. Somewhere in his young adult life, Alfred had begun letting him dictate so many of his own decisions with a sort of graceful and willing nature, a placid acceptance of Bruce’s status changing from child to adult.

Leslie had obviously cared about him, he’d never doubted that, but the tone of their relationship had taken much longer to change. She still had the ability to, within seconds, make him feel like a child all over again. He usually resisted this with a reserve or coldness he knew she didn’t deserve, a knee-jerk reaction to the sensation of being scolded and instructed without consent. Alfred did it too, but far more rarely, and it felt more warranted— the older man was intentional, only when even Bruce himself was forced to admit he was straying into abject idiocy. But most of his interactions with Leslie had taken on this struggling quality and he wasn’t sure either of them knew how to discuss it.

In the hospital hallway, it overwhelmed him again, except this time instead of a sensation of being a scolded child he just felt suddenly helpless. It was everything he’d buried since Alfred had first come to the hospital, everything he’d shoved down after those few moments of breaking when Clark had come with news, everything at once rising in his throat and choking him.

Without realizing it, he’d braced himself as if for a physical fight. He hadn’t taken an obvious fighting stance of any of the many forms he knew, but his arm was ready from shoulder to fingertips to slam his fist into bone and escape. At the same time, he felt a deep sort of joy and a quivering terror and a sort of hollowness it was all shrouded in.

“Bruce, when was the last time you ate anything?” Leslie asked. She wasn’t touching him, but she sounded thoroughly concerned. She didn’t sound upset, or angry, and he’d grown used to months of that as an undercurrent. He hadn’t resented it because he had assumed, as she was often right in the end, that it had been deserved.

“I can’t leave him,” Bruce said again, hardly processing her actual question. “I knew it was him the moment I saw him. Alfred didn’t believe me. He was here for _three days_ , Leslie. Three days of asking for me every time he woke up and I wasn’t here. What if he wakes up and I’m _not_ here again? I leave the room and I’m not even sure _he’ll_ still be there when I get back. I don’t know how much time I even have, to…before…”

Somehow, the fight had gone out of him with the words. He was glaring at the floor, and he could feel the flush of heat in his cheeks and around his eyes. It was a stinging, salty feeling that he’d crushed over and over and over in the past months. The stranded, desolate thing it led to inside was not something he ever wanted to deal with again, no matter how often it tried to force itself on him.

“Bruce.” Leslie said his name like she was recognizing him after a long absence, not like she was trying to get his attention. A second later her arms were around him, hands firm against his back, and the sob that escaped had him pressing his forehead against her shoulder. It didn’t matter that he had to stoop because she was shorter, and her fingers ended up holding the back of his head there. “Shhh,” she said, like he _was_ a child, and somehow that made it harder to stop instead of easier.

Six _months_ of living like another part of him hadn’t just died and if he had to do it again, if he had to bury his son one more time, he knew that would be the end of it for him. He wanted every moment he could possibly have before that happened, before he lived the nightmare of standing in an April fog and watching shovelfuls of dirt fall on a wooden box with part of his heart inside. He’d risked it, loving Dick and then Jason as his own, and he never _wanted_ to regret it. He hadn’t, even when he climbed back into a black town car and never _wanted_ to know that as soon as they pulled away, the cemetery staff would fill the hole with dirt loads from a small tractor and pack them down with heavy tire tread.

How many nights had he spent filling his time with work, beating criminals and the world alike to a bloody pulp, coming back before dawn just to avoid looking at the encased uniform and trying not to _think_ about any of it? And now, after the rational part of him had spent countless hours reassuring himself that all his toxin-tinged fears and mid-morning nightmares were pointless exercises in dread, he didn’t even know how long it would be before they had to start all over and the worst part was that they hadn’t even actually been empty fears. He’d drifted in and out of bad sleep in the hospital room, checking that Jason was still there, and then closing his eyes again to think, _I did this. I put him there. I left him there._

“Bruce,” Leslie said.

He did not have the feeling of coming back to himself; he knew _exactly_ where he was, in a hospital hallway, right outside the door where Jason was reading or sleeping, letting Leslie hug him. He knew these things in a detached way, disconnected from the ache in his chest or the choking, quiet sobs he couldn’t stop. There was an idle _you are being ridiculous_ assessment of it all, but it didn’t change the parts of him that were collapsing.

“Bruce,” she said again, her hand rubbing his back. He wanted to tell her to stop, that it wasn’t necessary, that he could calm himself down if she just gave him a damn minute, but he also couldn’t bring himself to pull away. “Shh. He’s okay. He’s going to be okay. You can’t figure it all out right now but you’ve got time, and you didn’t have that before. You don’t have to go anywhere right now.”

And then, just like that, it let go. He could nod into her embrace, ground himself and step back, know that for all she made him feel like a child sometimes she had also known him since he _was_ a child and understood him even when they didn’t agree. The weight that had been forcing him to bend like an overloaded timber plank dissipated and now, after just letting it snap him in two, he felt like he could breathe again. All the earlier attempts at relief of any kind paled in comparison.

He felt bare, standing there with her eyes still on him, frankly concerned and sad.

“I’m fine,” he said again, drawing it around him like his cape, because it was the only thing he could think of to say and it finally felt true again. He was hugging himself now with his own arms. “I’ll eat.”

“Do you need me to bring anything before I go back to the clinic?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“No. Alfred’s picking up lunch. And some clothes.” She was right; Jason _would_ notice and he didn’t need to worry about Bruce right now, of all things.

“Okay. I’m going to find his attending and talk some things over. I don’t think you should fight anything today, but if he does alright overnight, there’s really no reason to keep him. I think he’d do better at home, too.”

 _Home._ They were maybe less than a day away from taking Jason home. Bruce felt himself relaxing as it settled into him as something real that was going to happen, not something abstract or that would be whisked away just as they approached it.

“Thank you,” Bruce said, the phrase rough. He needed to sound normal again before he went back in. Leslie gave him a smile and patted his arm.

“Go back in there. I’ll duck my head in before I leave. It’s good to see him. I know there’s a lot to think about and take care of, but just do it one thing at a time.”

“I know,” he said, and he managed to not sound irritated. He didn’t really mind the reminder this time.

He opened the door and took a deep breath, enjoying how easy it was to fill his lungs, and went back in. Jason was sitting on the bed with his book, a thin frown on his face. The book was beside him and in his hand was Bruce’s phone.

Bruce’s cracked phone, the mess of angular lines that clouded the screen with the date stamp.

“Dick…” Jason said slowly, holding out the damaged device, “…wants to call.”

Wordlessly, Bruce took the phone. He didn’t want to startle or upset Jason but it had been weeks, maybe over a month, since he’d spoken to Dick. If his older son was trying to get in contact it likely meant something was wrong. And he hadn’t even tried to call him, yet, to talk about…

There was a text conversation on the screen, almost unreadable in some parts on the left side, but he could make it out well enough.

[hey this is jason. b and alfred are acting weird idk what’s going on, come help. he banned tv???]

[Bruce are you ok?]

[its Jason idk where my phone is. using b’s]

[is it safe to call? where r u? on my way]

[westside general room 348 he didn’t tell u? pneumonia sucks i want to go home already and eat al’s chicken soup]

[is it safe to call?]

Bruce tore his eyes off the screen and Jason blinked, seemingly unaware of the chaos he’d just generated. Bruce kicked himself for not calling Dick sooner; he could have avoided this entire disaster.

“M’head hurts,” Jason said, shoving the book further away so he could curl down into the pillow.

“I need to call Dick,” Bruce said, pressing the touchscreen button. He had to push it twice to get it to respond. “Do you think you can sleep or do you want some medicine?”

“Not bad,” Jason mumbled. “Tired.”

Bruce was glad he didn’t seem to have noticed the date; that gave him a bit more time to decide how exactly to deal with it. And that gave him time to deal with _this_ , with Dick who was going to be furious and Bruce didn’t even blame him.

“I’ll be right here, Jay. Just rest,” Bruce said, and he jammed the button again to actually place a call.

“Bruce?” Dick answered immediately, and he sounded… _scared_. “What’s happening? Are you okay? Westside is the hospital on 12th, right? I’m on my way right now.”

“Don’t speed,” Bruce said automatically, more reflex than anything. “I’m fine. And if you’re driving, pull over. I need to talk to you. It’s about Jason.”


	10. Chapter 10

The speedometer read fifteen miles above the posted speed limit, which Dick Grayson felt was reasonable considering the circumstances and the fact that he could safely manage a vehicle at much higher speeds. And he only had thirty-two miles to go on the interstate between NYC and Gotham anyway, before he hit midday traffic on the bridges into the city. 

_Don’t speed_ , like he was going to go slow and careful when Alfred wasn’t answering his phone and Bruce was having some sort of massive mental break. 

Bruce had been vague and noncommittal, only telling him that Jason was there somehow and refusing to send a picture because of a broken camera function on his phone. All Dick could get out of him otherwise was that he couldn’t talk about it, but to come, and drive slow, Dick, don’t rush, Dick, be careful, Dick.

Screw _that_. He might be furious with Bruce for trying to tell him what to do with his own life, for not being able to just stop trying to control Dick’s decisions, but he was also just uneasy. He didn’t know how to handle Bruce grieving and Bruce didn’t seem to know how to talk to him anymore, so staying out of the way and letting Alfred deal with it seemed like the best option. 

Dick managed to just make things _worse_.

But Bruce in trouble sort of chased away all of that, and Alfred not answering his phone added to the worry coiled thickly in his gut. And Dick knew, flying past a semi at almost ninety miles per hour, that he’d been a _coward_. He’d been a coward to stay away, to shut down, to lick his own wounds about how he should have helped Jason more. 

He wasn’t Robin anymore but he _had_ been, always would be a little bit, deep down. Robin had a job that had been vacant for too long, when Batman needed a Robin the most.

And Dick might be too late to fix it.

He nudged the gas and _hoped_ it was just fear toxin or mind control, maybe the first time in his life he’d ever thought he’d be relieved for one of those things to be involved. And a regular hospital, not Leslie’s place or home? Maybe he should have checked the news. Maybe it had happened at work.

His acceleration rapidly ended and declined when he approached the crawling traffic after the interchange exit to skirt around Gotham. It moved at highway pace, thirty or forty tops, but it felt like hardly moving at all.

If he’d taken his motorcycle instead of his car, he’d just deal with police and the eventual ticket and ride the shoulder for as long as he could, but even if he knew he could go a lot faster than Bruce was comfortable with, he wasn’t stupid. And an hour plus drive in November chill on a motorcycle, on a day that promised sleet at any moment, was stupid.

He’d just have to wait it out. 

It was an agonizing hour and five failed calls to Alfred and Bruce later— both kept going to voicemail now— that he pulled into the visitor parking at Westside and was tempted to just leave his car in a striped crosswalk space. He talked himself out of it, but it wasn’t an easy decision.

Inside, he sprinted up the stairs instead of taking the elevator, ignoring cries from the front desk behind him. Whatever it was, it could wait. He didn’t need directions.

And then, in a moment of what he knew was sort of absurd and ingrained rule-following (he blamed Alfred), he skidded to a stop outside 348 and knocked first.

There was movement on the other side of the door, low murmuring, and then it swung open. Alfred greeted him with a warm smile and Dick was confused, standing on the threshold. He glanced sideways to the little sliding paper that held the patient name.

_Todd, Jason P._

It felt like stepping into a dream, one that hadn’t decided yet if it was a nightmare or not. Alfred didn’t smile like that when Bruce was hurt; Dick knew the older man had other ways of small greeting, of saying _I’m glad you’re here, Master Richard_ even in the midst of stress.

Dick moved into the room and stopped, staring at Bruce, who had a warning finger to his lips, and then Jason Peter Todd— the boy he _should_ have treated like a brother, the boy who had to die before Dick could see that— asleep in a hospital bed, an old Wayne family blanket over his shoulders.

“What the _fuck_?” Dick exclaimed in a harsh whisper, his shock muted by his obedience to Bruce’s motion for quiet. Even now, maybe especially now when he was rattled, he instinctively followed those instructions. They meant life or death sometimes. “Bruce, what the…”

He trailed off, his eyes full of tears. 

Bruce had said Jason was back.

He’d said it and he hadn’t been crazy.

And Dick turned now to check Alfred, to see if there was some warning sadness there, and only found that same warm smile the older man had always reserved for _them_ , his boys. 

It terrified him. 

Something was wrong, there was something wrong with maybe all of Gotham, and Dick had to…

“This isn’t right,” Dick managed to hiss, edging backward. Whatever _thing_ was in that bed could wake up at any second and…attack them or catch him in the same sick illusion and then nobody could save Bruce. “This isn’t…oh my god, B, this can’t….”

He was almost against the door now. His escrima sticks weren’t there, crossed over his spine. He could fight hand to hand just as well, unless there was some sort of fluid or vapor or direct contact that made it more dangerous.

It looked so much like him.

“Dick,” Bruce said, standing right in front of him, interfering with his line of sight. That meant Bruce had his back to the _thing_ , whatever it was. His throat was closing up at the hazard, at Bruce not being careful, he wanted to shout at him to _turn_ or just flee and Dick could beat the thing to a pulp, until it showed its true self.

He wanted to be angry, he was trying so hard to summon it because it would be good for a fight, but it looked _so much like Jason_ that instead he found the tears spilling over and Bruce looked so _calm_ but present; there was no weird glint in his eyes or blankness to his face like he wasn’t really aware.

“What’s going on? I don’t understand what’s going on,” Dick said harshly, trying to peer around Bruce.

“Dick, I need you to calm down,” Bruce said, his voice low and even.

“Don’t tell me to calm the fuck down!” Dick snarled, sidestepping from Bruce’s hands about to land on his shoulders. “What _is_ that? How long have you been in here? I’m calling the Titans, I need…”

“Master Richard,” Alfred said, sedate and unworried. “I’m sure that won’t be necessary. If you sit a moment and collect yourself, we can explain as much as we’re able.”

“I don’t want—”

“Sit,” Bruce ordered, in _that_ voice, the one that could make Dick’s spine straighten in an instant whether he was in an alley or at a gala or outside a school classroom, the one he’d resisted and resented and run from so he could make his _own_ damn decisions.

Dick sat.

Bruce crouched in front of him while Dick was frozen in his limbs, chest heaving, head spinning, fingers itching to tap in an emergency code for help from the Tower. Bruce reached out and with a thumb, brushed salty streaks off Dick’s cheekbones, just like he used to before things went to shit between them and Dick still went to him with nightmares or problems.

“I need you to calm down and trust me,” Bruce said, serious and at a low volume. “The longer he sleeps, the more I can explain right now. Understand?”

Dick nodded, a howling like strong wind in his ears. 

“He was picked up in South Bristol three days ago. Some teenagers found him. We think he must have wandered across the bridge, maybe trying to get home. We didn’t know until yesterday. We’ve run blood and DNA and Clark checked the grave; we’re sure it’s him, even if we can’t explain how. Remember the storm we had a few days ago? It hit the whole north coast, you probably got it, too.”

Dick nodded again. He did remember; it had been a miserable night.

“He was out in that for hours. He was in bad shape from exposure and…” Here, Bruce faltered for a brief second. It made Dick shift in his seat as the paralysis faded. “…and some other things. He’s still dealing with some language and processing delays and we don’t know how much he remembers. Leslie saw him this morning and recommended we let him ask when he’s ready.”

Dick licked his dry lips, trying to will moisture to return to his cottony mouth. He swallowed but it didn’t help either.

“You’re sure?” he asked, ready to drag Bruce from the room if he had to, if he needed to save him. He’d come back for Alfred, too.

But Bruce looked _sane_ , not avoiding his gaze and not manic. That face had guided him through the worst memories and toxin-induced hallucinations and even if Dick didn’t always like him right now, he knew Bruce was not one to accept easy answers if there was the slightest doubt.

“I’m sure,” Bruce said. 

There was something _different_ about his expression, not wrong, just a change from what Dick had been used to seeing there the past several months. He hadn’t seen him often, but it was enough to have those grim lines of grief and exhaustion etched into his memory. And just like that, they were gone. 

Dick dipped sideways to look at the sleeping boy in the bed.

Same stubborn dark curls, same curve to his jawline, the cheeks that had filled out with Alfred’s food from their early, desperate leanness when Jason was just as likely to kick him in the shins as he was to follow him around with awed hero-worship. 

“It’s really him,” Dick said, caught between a question and a statement. 

“Doubt is a good first instinct,” Bruce said, though he didn’t sound convinced of this right in the moment. It sounded more like a concession. “But it is.”

“And you waited until _today_ to call me?” Dick demanded. “You didn’t even call me! _He_ tried to–”

“I’m sorry,” Bruce said, cutting him off. “I wasn’t handling it well. I should have called.”

“What?” Dick said faintly, blinking at him. 

“I’m sorry,” Bruce said again.

“We both are,” Alfred added from across the room. Dick had nearly forgotten he was there. “I haven’t been up to my usual standard. One of us ought to have gotten in touch.”

“Oh,” Dick said, slumping in the seat. “Oh. Okay.”

Bruce stood and a second later, Dick was on his feet, too, halfway to Jason before he hesitated. 

“Is he…is it okay if…”

Jason rolled over and grumbled in his sleep. He put a bandaged hand over the ear not buried in the pillow and made a whining noise that might have been, “Shut up.”

“He had has a headache,” Bruce said. “And he’s aware enough to refuse painkillers.”

“Stubborn shit,” Dick said fondly, not waiting any longer. He perched on the small table by the bed and ran a hand over Jason’s hair. “Just like him.”

Weird, _weird_ things happened in Dick Grayson’s life, very few of them ever any good. If the universe thought it was okay to give him– give all of them– a second chance on this front, he wasn’t going to waste too much time questioning it or arguing. 

“Dick?” Jason murmured, his hand still over his ear. He opened his eyes halfway. “Bright,” he winced. The light went off when Bruce flicked the switch and Alfred drew the blinds more firmly shut.

“Hey, Little Wing,” Dick said, with a smile. “You called, I came. Just like I promised.”


	11. Chapter 11

The night came quickly in November. The sun set and inky darkness, moonlight obscured by city smog this close to the ground, flooded the windows outside Jason’s hospital room. When Alfred finally left to sleep and make further arrangements at home and Dick headed out to patrol the city for a bit, it had been dark for hours already. He doubted that they would have left at all, except it was becoming steadily more obvious that Jason felt _miserable_ and kept pretending otherwise for their sake. He still wasn’t talking much, but Dick’s arrival had brought a forced alertness and he’d spent hours sitting up and trying to stay involved. Words turned into phrases and were steadily becoming longer and more complex sentences; there were shorter pauses and less confusion in his speech.

So, by unspoken agreement, the other two had made excuses and slipped out of the room, and Bruce was left with an exhausted, aching boy who had reached his limit for books, or DVDs, or distractions. Jason had only picked at dinner, which was one of the final straws for Alfred, who had insisted he needed to go prepare a few _decent_ meals for Jason’s return home.

It had been over thirty-six hours since he’d arrived at the hospital and Bruce knew that they’d have to start making decisions about how to handle this publically, and soon. They’d managed to keep police out of the room and make brief arrangements with Jim Gordon to turn over fingerprint and blood records to, at the very least, establish Jason’s legal identity again. It was like being caught in the eye of the storm, sheltered from the raging disaster about to slam into them.

But first, before that, there was Jason himself, curling into a pillow with his hand pressed over his eyes and an oxygen level that kept hovering in the low nineties, occasionally dipping into the upper eighties. It had already brought a nurse to their room more than once, to check on him and ask Jason how he was feeling. He’d refused pain medicine for the headache and oxygen every time, and since he was breathing well _enough_ , they hadn’t pushed.

Bruce could have technically insisted, as the adult, and was getting closer to doing so by the second. Jason beginning to be aware of himself and self-manage his own body was a good goal but there were doubts he was making decisions in his own best interest. 

“Jason,” Bruce said, taking up his seat next to the bed again. 

“What,” Jason asked flatly. He wasn’t even putting any effort into sounding enthused anymore.

“I’m going to have you hooked up to oxygen again,” Bruce said, brushing Jason’s sweaty hair back. That was a good sign at least: hydrated and fever down. Jason moved his hand to scowl at him.

“No.”

“You need it,” Bruce said, grateful for even a scowl. Maybe eventually that would fade but it hadn’t yet. 

Instead of turning from him, as Bruce half-expected, Jason’s face crumpled and he was reminded _again_ how shaky Jason’s emotional state still was.

“I want to go home,” Jason pleaded. “Please, B. Dr. Thompkins…” He frowned, thinking, and then moved on. “One night. Then home.”

“Without the oxygen?” Bruce clarified and Jason nodded. “No. If you need it, we can do one more day. It’s okay.”

There was a silence and Jason rolled away from him after all. Bruce waited. Angry, he could handle. Jason alive made up for that. Jason in pain, he was less certain he could stand by and watch for much longer without overruling Jason’s wishes. 

“Painkillers?” Jason asked, his voice rough like he was trying not to cry. “Instead?”

“Jay,” Bruce said, sitting back in the chair. “No. You don’t have to push yourself.”

“I want to go home,” Jason answered, with a heaving breath. He sounded close to panic again and his rapid decline the night before had scared Bruce half to death, that moment where he couldn’t tell if it was fear or inability to breathe for other reasons. 

“We will. Soon,” Bruce said, rubbing Jason’s back where his shoulder blades met. “Breathe.”

“I hate hospitals,” Jason whispered a few seconds later, when he was inhaling and exhaling more steadily again. It didn’t lose the wheezing noise, rattling in his chest, even if it evened out, unfortunately. “Please, B.” He rolled back over to look at Bruce, his eyes red-rimmed. “I’ll take medicine.”

Bruce held his gaze for a moment, trying to discern how much Jason wanted it for himself and how much he wanted it because he thought it was what he was supposed to do. He wished there was some sort of manual for reading this situation and _knowing_. He listened to Jason fighting to breathe easily while he waited.

“No,” he said, finally. “I’m sorry, Jay. But if you need oxygen, you need oxygen. I’ll stay with you. Alfred and Dick will come back tomorrow. Right now, it’s more important that you get what you need.”

In an instant, Jason’s pained and pleading expression twisted into tight anger and he flopped back over on the bed. He wheezed, and Bruce was _certain_ it had been getting worse throughout the evening. Bruce leaned forward and pressed the call button.

Jason was sullen through the nurse’s arrival, a brief consult with the doctor on the floor for the night, and the setup of the new nasal cannula torn from sealed, sterile packaging. When the hiss of the oxygen matched his scratchy inhalations, Bruce half-expected Jason to tear it off his face. But Jason left it alone, burrowing beneath his blanket with his back still to Bruce.

Jason’s anger was like fresh air. _Anything_ from him was still like a gift. It was hard to be frustrated at Jason for being angry when being angry meant being alive. Bruce could wait it out. 

So, he waited. 

Five minutes passed, and then ten. Then fifteen. He was starting to hope, for Jason’s sake, that the kid had fallen asleep, when Jason said in a resigned tone, “My head hurts less.”

“Good,” Bruce said. “I’m glad. Do you need anything else?”

“Can’t sleep,” Jason said, facing Bruce again. “Talk?” 

“Sure,” Bruce agreed, feeling profound relief at Jason’s much more relaxed expression. His anger seemed to be fading along with the pain of the headache and the return of oxygen to his system. “What do you want to talk about?”

Open, taking the passenger seat, was the best way to handle this. It wasn’t the most comfortable place in a conversation, but there were such massive topics that Bruce _didn’t_ want to discuss with an emotionally rattled kid that it was a small blessing to let him lead. If Jason asked, he’d answer. 

If Jason didn’t ask, he wouldn’t have to—

“Did we get him? Joker?” Jason asked in a small whisper, his eyes wide and his skin unhealthy white even in the dim lighting.

There was a sudden ache in Bruce’s hand, the memory of fingers broken against Clark’s jaw just months ago; the blinding rage and the roar of helicopter blades cutting the sky; the frigid water swallowing him and wanting to stay under; the sour urge to weep and struggle against being hauled out onto a dock; _find him, find his body_ coming out of his mouth instead; choking out saltwater and dragging himself back down into the depths to hunt for that morbid grimacing grin.

And _nothing_. Not a trace. 

He hadn’t dared to believe it before, not really, but maybe if Jason walked the earth again that bastard could stay underneath it.

“We got him, Jay,” Bruce said. “I think he’s dead.”

The wide blue eyes widened even more and Jason shrank against the bed, his blanket held tight beneath his chin.

“Did you…” he trailed off, his gaze flicking to Bruce’s hands and then back up at Bruce’s face. Jason shuddered and Bruce wanted to hug him, to hold him and promise that whatever hell was in his head, Bruce would protect him from. He wasn’t sure what he’d do if he had just become that hell, and for the first time since the helicopter had gone down Bruce was thoroughly and completely glad he _hadn’t_. It had always felt muddled before. 

“No,” Bruce said, “I didn’t. But I wanted to.”

He wasn’t sure what compelled him to add that confession, as honest as it was. He wondered if he’d gone too far, if it was too much, but Jason relaxed a little and nodded as if it satisfied him.

“Good.”

Jason didn’t say if he meant Bruce’s desire, his technical innocence, or the fact that the Joker was gone. And Bruce didn’t ask. Later, they could deal with technicalities and adhered to rules and the messiness of desires vs. moral right, but _later_.

“What day is it?” Jason asked next and Bruce felt like he needed about ten hours of absolute silence strategizing in front of the Cave computer to make contingency plans for all the ways this could go wrong or would hurt Jason. He’d been reassured by Leslie’s agreement that letting Jason lead was the right thing to do, but now he realized that even _that_ felt too soon.

Jason rushed into things.

But Bruce didn’t think either of them were really ready for this, for the _you died six months ago_ , and _do you remember the coffin?_ , and _I don’t know if I like who I became while you were gone_ , and _you missed so much and I can’t fix it_.

He balked and yawned to hide his hesitation. 

“Thursday,” he said, without elaborating. 

“Hm,” Jason said, a crease in his brow. He yawned in response and let it drop. Maybe he was thinking. 

Bruce was thinking. The best way to head off more questions right now was to direct the conversation after all, but out of his arsenal of skills it was not one he wielded well _and_ genuinely at the same time. Casual and fake, he could do. But it had always been Dick, and then Jason, who _chatted_. He’d listened and commented, thoroughly enjoying it, until the day it stopped.

The past months, as he’d come out of the initial shock, had been full of times he’d wanted to tell Jason something…how to handle a piece of evidence, a thought on a book he’d been reading, surprise at a Knights game result, wanting to watch an old movie…and had turned to silence and an empty chair, or passenger seat, or hallway.

Hundreds of little things, things that didn’t matter but meant everything, and now he couldn’t think of a single one of them. It didn’t help that the months were also a blur of casework and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d stuck with any leisure activity for more than ten or fifteen minutes.

“B?” Jason asked, bewildered. “You okay?”

Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose, disguising the sudden tears that filled his eyes with feigned headache. Just as quickly, he pulled his hand down to rub his scratchy chin and stopped squinting at the floor. He looked at Jason again and smiled, and it wasn’t forced in the least. 

“I’m fine. How’s your head?”

Jason gave him a vaguely suspicious glint in return, but looked too tired to keep it up. He shrugged a shoulder under the blanket.

“Lots better.”

“Alfred found a first edition of Busman’s Honeymoon,” Bruce said, suddenly remembering. The package had been waiting in a familiar blue box on the desk in the study and had been left sitting unopened for weeks, until Alfred finally took pity on the both of them and shelved it somewhere with little fanfare. Bruce had looked it over sometime after that, while resting a half-dozen bruised bones and some sutures. “An autographed copy.”

“Really?” Jason lit up. “What was changed?”

“I’m not sure,” Bruce said. He never compared the text to the American edition; it was a sort of fun, but far more useful as an exercise in detail-work for Jason. And the honest reason had his eyes gritty-dry to match his throat. “I was saving it. Thought you’d like to help.”

“Sure,” Jason said, like it was a casual thing. His face was still bright. “I can do it.”

“If we find a few more, that could make a good project while you get better,” Bruce said, glad to move on. He was glad he _could_ move on; making plans for the coming weeks was a kind of intoxicating prospect. Jason would be home. “Maybe a Hardy Boys one, too.”

“They’re so bad,” Jason laughed, half-coughing when he did. “They’re _so_ bad, B. The girls.”

The laughter flooded Bruce with warmth and he felt as if he’d been cold, _freezing_ , in a block of ice for as long as he could remember and it was melting in seconds. 

“You don’t like the girls?” Bruce teased and Jason kicked ineffectually at him, his foot not escaping the blanket but the meaning clear. 

“You know. Dumb maiden thing, fake,” Jason protested with a sneaky grin. “Your type.”

Bruce laughed, too, and ruffled Jason’s hair. “Watch it. I sign your permission slips for field trips.”

“Big talk, no action,” Jason retorted. “You’ll still sign. Educational.”

“I was thinking about getting a Daimler,” Bruce said, even though until that second he hadn’t been. The mention of school had been a misstep and he could see it souring quickly if they stayed there, if he had to admit Jason had missed the end of ninth grade and the beginning of tenth. 

“Why?” Jason asked, the teasing falling away into sheer curiosity. “Like Lord Peter?”

“Yes.” Bruce nodded. “We’ll fix it up, take it out.”

“Cool,” Jason said. He was beginning to sound sleepy. “Gray. Not black.”

“Gray,” Bruce echoed. “Get some sleep, Jay.”

“‘kay,” Jason mumbled. “You staying?”

“Yes,” Bruce said. “I’m staying.”

For a long time after Jason fell asleep, Bruce didn’t think he’d be able to. He was used to late nights and pushing himself, but eventually the rhythmic hiss of oxygen and the soft snores from Jason lulled him into first rest and then slumber.

He woke to a buzzing, broken phone; a groggy Jason; knocking on the door, and Alfred slipping into the room with a slightly offended scowl, a slim satchel, and a suit bag. 

“The vultures have descended,” he said, by way of warning. Bruce sat up straight in the chair and ran a hand through his hair before he registered how little good this would do. He was stiff all over and wanted, _needed_ , a good workout and maybe a run. 

“We have to tell them something,” Bruce said ruefully, judging the length of beard scruff with a quick pass of his palm. “And I look like hell.”

Alfred raised an eyebrow at him and then shared a chiding look with Jason, who happily and sleepily grinned at the mild rebuke aimed toward Bruce instead of himself.

There was more knocking on the door. Vicki’s voice came through. “Hey. Bruce. They’re about to throw me out with the rest of the reporters but you owe me. I tried calling first.”

And before she finished knocking, there was a tap on the window. Bruce stood, leaned, and pulled the blinds aside just enough to see Superman floating in the air with a regretful, awkward half-smile. 

“Sorry. We need to talk,” he said through the glass. 

“What’s going on?” Jason grumbled, putting the pillow over his head. “Too early.”

Bruce didn’t disagree in the least.


	12. Chapter 12

In the hospital room behind them, Clark could hear Jason Todd eating yogurt from a container Alfred had handed him right before the bathroom door closed. They were talking, something about a menu, and Jason’s words were distorted as he spoke with his mouth full. There was no accompanying reminder of manners and Clark had even heard Bruce scolded over a similar infraction before. 

He leaned against the wall, his cape almost dusting the floor, and focused on his script. He’d gone over it multiple times overnight while alternating between keeping an eye on Metropolis and Gotham, until running into Nightwing and talking it over with him.

That grin, familiar and cocky and young, hadn’t left Dick’s face for more than a few seconds at a time, even when discussing how to handle this. Clark was used to being the mentor here, but it was nice to have the additional perspective of someone familiar with both their _kind_ of secret and the venomous media. And for all of Bruce’s earlier worry (worn as rigid control, Clark knew; he wasn’t an idiot about Bruce’s faults), Dick really was coming into his own. Clark was proud of him and told him so, and that boyish grin deepened.

But now he had to deal with this, with Bruce, stubborn as a wild colt and as smart as a whip and very, very emotionally and mentally compromised at the moment. Clark thought he had about a snowball’s chance in hell of getting him to admit it, too.

The hospital bathroom felt crowded, even if it was designed to accommodate adaptive technologies and patients assisted by nurses. The mirror was still fogged with steam from the shower Bruce had taken while Clark talked to Jason and Alfred, and the billionaire was now standing with a towel wrapped around his waist, smearing shaving cream over his face. It made the room smell like one of Lois’ soy candles, the ones she said were there to remind her trees existed while she lived in concrete and neon.

“What are you going to tell them?” Clark asked, crossing his arms.

“I thought you said you needed to talk,” Bruce retorted, dragging a razor across his face. The scraping noise was followed by the flow of hot water from the faucet. 

“So, you don’t know,” Clark said. If Bruce had a plan, he wouldn’t have hesitated to tell him so, even if he didn’t elaborate on details. Bruce met his eyes in the mirror’s reflection, the razor paused near his cheek. It scraped again, taking up stubble and cream.

“No,” Bruce said tersely. “I’ll think of something.”

“I have an idea,” Clark said. “But you aren’t going to like it.”

“Let me decide what I do and don’t like,” Bruce said, his tone as sharp as the razor blade cleaning up his face.

 _Gotcha,_ Clark thought, keeping the smile from reaching his face. He hadn’t spent so much time around Bruce to learn nothing, but he doubted Bruce (or his Ma) would appreciate the things he now considered effective lessons.

And maybe the iciness in Bruce’s manner would offend him more if he wasn’t aware that Bruce was nervous, on edge about meeting the crowd outside downstairs and their questions. He could actually ignore them for another day or two, but they both knew it would fuel rumors and that, out of years of habit, the Wayne family preferred to keep tight control on media by confronting it head-on.

“I think you should tell the truth,” Clark said. 

Bruce flinched and then actually turned from the mirror to glare at him.

“The what.”

“The truth,” Clark said, not looking away. 

Bruce went back to his reflection and started on the other side of his face. He didn’t say anything but the tenseness of his jaw, the controlled heart rate, told Clark he was mulling it over. And then the razor slipped.

“Dammit,” Bruce hissed, the yellowing bruise on his shoulder dipping as he leaned forward to study the cut. It was small; beading blood mixed with the white foam and left a pink streak running down his face. He examined it and then resumed shaving, apparently determined to ignore it for now.

Clark almost spoke three times while Bruce finished and splashed water over the shaving cream residue and dried his face. He moved on to combing his hair and Clark kept his mouth shut by sheer willpower.

“Why?” Bruce asked. “Hand me that bag.”

The cape rustled as Clark turned to hunt for whatever Bruce had nodded toward, and he found a leather bag hanging on the back of the bathroom door. He plucked it off the hook and tossed it to him. The shaving cream tube and razor went in and a few cosmetic products were lined up on the counter in their place.

“I don’t mean the whole truth, obviously,” Clark said, while Bruce rubbed something green-toned over the cut. It had already stopped bleeding. A few scars and bruises got the same treatment.

“I’m already listening. Stop trying to bait me,” Bruce said, sounding suddenly weary. 

Clark nodded; that was his cue. He’d throw it up in the air and it would land or not, that part was in Bruce’s hands.

“You gave them a story six months ago,” Clark said, ignoring the brief flash of hurt on Bruce’s face. It would fade, it _could_ fade now. It just hadn’t caught up to them yet. “What’s changed?”

“Clark,” Bruce said. He was now working with some kind of flesh-colored powder. He didn’t look camera ready, like a news anchor with a pasty appearance unnatural outside of studio lighting. He just looked like Bruce, minus the details that made him seem older and more battered.

“So he came back,” Clark said, letting himself grin now. The corners of Bruce’s mouth tugged upward, too, and the other man was acting more immersed in packing away a small foam pad than he probably needed to be. “Which is great. It’s _great_ , Bruce. But it also doesn’t have anything to do with, well, your nightlife.”

“That we know of,” Bruce said, his words punctuated by the _schwick_ of a zipper as he closed the bag. 

“It’s been, what, five days? Who have we ever gone up against with that kind of patience? What’s the motive? Who even knows to connect you? Why not bring him back as Robin if that were the case?” 

“Hn,” Bruce said. He was buttoning a dress shirt now, the towel still around his waist. “Alright. If I assume you’re correct, which is a risk, we don’t even know what the truth is. There’s nothing to explain.”

“So say that,” Clark said eagerly, pouncing on the angle he’d tried for hours to decide _how_ to emphasize, after it had occurred to him how simple and evident it was. “You don’t know. You don’t like that, but Gotham is used to it. You’ve got, what? Witnesses at a funeral, two separate coroners that will verify their work. Why make something up? Those are just more details for you, for _Jason_ , to keep straight. And it’s unnecessary.”

“It exposes him to gross speculation and a media circus, Clark,” Bruce said harshly, his voice low even with the thick door between them and the room. “I won’t put him through that.”

“You think he’ll fare any better as the boy you tried to get rid of?” Clark challenged, wincing inside even as he said it. He wished Bruce looked angry instead of like he’d just speared him in the stomach. “You think some flimsy, complicated story with a mixed-up identity and procuring another body is a better answer? I know you. I know you think you can outsmart this, but you’re working with scraps here and if you weren’t so distracted— and heck am I ever glad you have this to distract you— you’d know that it’ll never satisfy someone like Lois, like Vicki Vale. Any journalist with half a brain is going to smell lies all over this. 

“No. Tell them the truth, Bruce. He died, you buried him, he came back, and you don’t know how or why.” Clark shifted out of the way when Bruce reached around him, expression now pensive, to grab the pressed slacks hanging on the door. “People love a happy ending, and no matter how much they poke around, they won’t find some detail that unravels this. Everything here is in your favor unless you muck it up with lies.”

Bruce started, his back to him as he tucked in his shirt and cinched his belt. Clark didn’t know where he’d hidden half the stuff around the room.

“I thought you said ‘fuck,’” Bruce said, with faint amusement. 

“I can’t afford that, not around Alfred,” Clark joked, grateful for the break in tension. “Dick told me how much he charges now. So, what do you think?”

“I hate it,” Bruce said bluntly. “But that doesn’t mean you’re wrong.”

“If you want, I’ll keep him and Alfred company while you go down,” Clark offered. Bruce finished knotting the tie and slid it close under his collar. 

“We’d appreciate that,” Bruce said, looking down at his hands. “The truth?” He looked up, searching Clark’s face. “I don’t like not having answers, Clark.”

“I know,” Clark said. “But it’s the better story. I wouldn’t be telling you that if I thought it would make it harder in the long run.”

“I won’t be down there long,” Bruce said, checking himself over in the mirror and now moving with precision. “I’m giving them a statement and that’s it. Thank you, for…”

“Whatever you need,” Clark said. “I’ll keep an eye on Gotham for a bit, with Dick.”

Bruce nodded and adjusted his cuffs, and left the bathroom ahead of Clark. Clark waited a moment, only slightly eavesdropping on Bruce’s farewell to Jason and promise to return soon. When the door to the hallway opened and closed, Clark stepped out into the room and beamed at Jason.

“So, kiddo. How about a card game?”

“Poker,” Jason said, eyes gleaming. Clark looked at Alfred, who gave a mild, humored shrug.

“I’ll not protest if I’m allowed a hand,” Alfred said. 

“Deal,” Clark said, drawing a chair over to the bed where Jason sat cross-legged with a granola bar. “But go easy on me.”


	13. Chapter 13

The small gym was nearly, but not completely, empty when Barbara Gordon was almost through the last set of reps with the small hand weights. It was a light day, her muscles still twinged with soreness from the strenuous workout the day before.

 _At least I’ll never have to do squats again,_ she thought dryly. If she was learning anything from her recent workouts, it was that she had limits she had to respect— but they were often further out than she first assumed.

Her life had become a balancing act of knowing when to push and when to cut herself some slack. After being raised by a workaholic detective and then spending formative years in the company of either gymnastics classmates gunning for the Olympics or a couple of masked thrill-junkie heroes, _stop_ and _rest_ were barely in her vocabulary.

She was starting to think adding them was maybe a good thing after all.

Barbara was counting her last set when her phone buzzed. She ignored it for a three-count and then it buzzed again. And again. 

In all her years of being her father’s daughter, she’d never _quite_ shaken the tense dread that could grip her in seconds when a phone wouldn’t stop ringing. She dropped the weights on the rack and pulled her phone out of its pocket.

There were three messages, all from…Bruce.

[Call me]

[Don’t turn on the news]

[ASAP]

It wasn’t a badge at the precinct but somehow hearing it from him made it seem worse, more instantly serious. She fumbled through the touchscreen options for calling, her muscles trembling after the abrupt stop in exercise with no cool down.

He answered on the first ring, already talking.

“Have you seen the news this morning?”

“No,” she said, slowly, drawing the syllable out. She spun toward the gym exit. “Should I?”

“No. Not yet. Log in to the Westside General patient registry.”

Barbara braked abruptly in the hall. “Bruce. You’re scaring me,” she said flatly. For a detective, he was really bad at hints and she’d mostly given up on nuance a while ago. “What’s going on?”

“This isn’t about your father,” he said, sounding calm. Or maybe thrown off-guard, it was hard to tell. “Are you logged in?”

“I’m not even in my room!” Babs shot back, now annoyed. “Give me a couple minutes.”

In answer, there was silence. She turned a corner and on the next long stretch of hallway, checked the screen to see if it was still connected.

“What’s going on?” she tried again. 

“I’m waiting,” he answered, and she wanted to smack his face with the phone, so it was probably good that he was somewhere on the other end of the line.

“Let’s rule out some things so I can focus,” she said. “Are you hurt?”

“No. I’m…fine.” He said this like he was _more_ than fine and had forgotten what words to use. That was confusing and her curiosity levels were now shooting through the roof.

“I’m in my room,” she said. “And you’re on speaker for a minute. Westside, you said?”

“Yes,” he answered. 

“Dick? Alfred?” she asked.

“No,” he said.

“No, it’s not them, or no, you aren’t telling me yet?” Babs’ laptop was on her desk and she flipped it open and started typing. There was a patient registry she found within a minute that required admin access. “Wanna give me a bit more to go on before I do something illegal?”

“It’s about Jason,” he said. 

She bypassed the log in.

“What am I looking for?” she asked, scanning the list.

“Jason,” he said. “Room 348.”

If she’d been holding coffee, she would have dropped it. A couple more keystrokes and sure enough, there was the room number and the patient name and a small list of details.

“Bruce. What the _hell_ is going on?” Babs asked, her voice shaky. The possibility that she’d woken up in an alternate universe occurred to her, or maybe some sort of simulation. 

“He’s back,” Bruce said, exhaling on the other end. “I don’t know how but I know it’s him. The first news stories are going out this morning and I wanted to tell you before you saw–”

“There’s some kind of mistake,” Babs said. Better to put an end to it now. “Are you there? You should get out of there immediately. Maybe a safehouse, something off the grid. I can start tracking–”

“Babs,” Bruce said firmly. “I’ve been here three days. Your father is verifying prints and blood, but we’ve already done it. I can’t talk long but I’ll stop by after I take him home.”

“Home?” Babs hissed, glaring at the screen. He clearly wasn’t having some sort of personal breakdown, if the hospital and her dad and the news were all involved, but _still_. “Is Alfred there?”

“You could come see him,” Bruce said. “I can send someone.”

“How…” Babs didn’t know what to ask. It sounded real. It _felt_ more real than it felt wrong, the absence of warning signals going off in her gut beginning to sway her. Evidence could be faked, she knew, but this was Bruce and he knew what he was doing. And one piece of tampered evidence was one thing– multiple corroborating stories, though? 

This was time to gather, though. To build a case.

“I need more,” Babs said bluntly. “Before I get in touch with external help.”

She didn’t have to say the JLA. He would understand. 

“Clark just left,” Bruce said. “Hold on.”

There were the sounds of a door opening, of muffled conversation.

Babs waited, at war within herself. She wanted to just believe it, she had _reasons_ to believe it, but that sort of thing didn’t just–

A text notification dropped down and she tapped it.

It was a picture, of Bruce _smiling_ , that sideways smirk of a smile that was the real thing, sitting with his arm thrown around…

Jason Todd.

Jason Todd with his own grin, a hospital gown over his hunched shoulders and a half-eaten chili dog on a paper basket tray in his hands. 

“‘emme ‘inish ea’ing,” she heard over the speaker; Jason, with his mouth full. 

“Say hi to Barbara,” Bruce’s voice came next. “And then you can.”

“Hi,” Jason said, clear and grumbly. “No offense, but you know what hospital food is like.”

And Babs couldn’t help the sympathetic laugh that poured out of her. “Let the kid finish his food, Bruce,” she said, even if a moment ago she’d been demanding that he _do_ something, do more, that led to the interruption.

“See?” Jason was half-shouting. “She knows! It’s getting cold!”

“I’ll get you another,” Bruce said, and Jason said something Babs couldn’t quite make out, but was followed by the sound of his laughing protest.

“Enough?” Bruce asked over the line.

Babs didn’t understand. She didn’t understand _at all_.

But it somehow was.

Plus, she could check with her dad. 

“Yeah,” she said. “Can I still come over?”

“Dick will pick you up,” he said. “I’ll text you.” 

He hung up without a goodbye and Babs stared at her laptop. A few more minutes in the hospital system led to a police report and then, finally, she pulled up local news sites. 

The text came while she was reading over the very brief statement Bruce had given to the press. The story was already trending on multiple outlets with promises for more information to follow.

[I don’t know how much he knows. Don’t bring it up.]

Well, that was going to be fun.

Babs looked down at her wheelchair and then around her room. A lot had changed in six months, about her own mobility. She wasn’t the same girl mostly trapped in a bed that she was when Jason had died.

[I don’t know how to tell him. Dick can be there in an hour.]

The other text lit up the screen and she knew a cry for help from Bruce when she saw one. He wasn’t exactly the type to just ask. 

Babs closed the laptop and took a deep breath.

It was about time they caught a break. If it came with unpleasant details, that was _nothing_ compared to how things usually went. 


	14. Chapter 14

Dick Grayson slouched at the Wayne Manor dining room table, his chin propped in one bruised hand, while he watched Jason Todd tear into his third serving of chicken pot pie like he hadn’t eaten in days.

“Slow down,” he said, and he felt rather than saw Bruce’s attention flick up to them. Dick inwardly cringed at just how much Bruce he had just sounded, and wondered if that’s what had made Bruce look up.

Bruce was eating much more slowly, his attention on a tablet of work emails as he ate, and Dick was already stuffed. Alfred had actually sat down to eat with them, which wasn’t especially unusual but wasn’t super common either.

Then again, Dick hadn’t eaten very many meals at the Manor that _weren’t_ holiday dinners for a while, so he wasn’t sure what counted as normal anymore. And Alfred had already excused himself to work on something in the kitchen.

“Little Wing,” Dick said, when Jason ignored him. “Remember Jurassic Park?”

That got his attention and Jason glanced up at him, briefly.

“Yeah,” he said, around a mouthful of flaking pastry. 

“Remember that part where the kids find the dining hall? With all the ice cream?”

Jason’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“That’s what you look like right now. Shoveling it in. You’re just missing the wild hair.” Dick leaned forward and tousled Jason’s combed hair up into chaos. Jason jerked sideways, ducking to avoid his hand.

“Shut up,” he muttered. “I’m hungry.”

“At least we don’t have any dinosaurs upstairs,” Dick said, while the chicken pot pie steadily vanished from Jason’s plate.

“I hate you,” Jason muttered. “You go live on broth and gelatin and lukewarm gravy for four days.”

“So, chicken pot pie,” Dick said with a grin.

“Dick,” Bruce said sternly at the same time Jason scowled at him. The scowl almost instantly shifted to Bruce.

“He’s fine. He isn’t bothering me,” Jason said, with clear annoyance. His focus swung back to Dick. “Don’t talk about Alfred’s food that way, dickwad.”

“Jason,” Bruce said, and Dick was a little irritated that this was more of a long-suffering sigh than an actual rebuke. 

“It’s his name!” Jason exclaimed. “It’s his _freaking name_. He could go by Richard anytime he wanted, but he _likes_ it.”

“I do like it,” Dick said, slipping further down to rest his crossed arms on the table. “It’s my name.”

“Didja hear that, B?” Jason asked. His sly grin was somewhat interrupted by his mouthful of food. “He said he likes dick.”

“Your little brother game is improving all the time,” Dick commented, unruffled. “Maybe you’ll make it to the big leagues soon.”

Bruce was resolutely immersing himself in the work emails rather than scolding either of them. Jason tried to stick his tongue out at Dick, his cheek packed full of food he’d shoved aside just to do so, but starting coughing instead and then it turned into something like choking.

In the same second Dick tensed and sat up, Bruce was already on his feet. Jason put a hand up for them both to stop, and Bruce made it another step before he listened. The younger boy drained half a glass of water.

“Sheesh,” he mumbled. “I’m fine. Calm down.”

“Dick,” Bruce said, exasperated, pinching the bridge of his nose.

The buoyant mood Dick had been fighting to keep all morning was stubbornly slipping away.

“Dick _what_?” he snapped.

“I’m _fine_ ,” Jason said.

“Never mind,” Bruce shook his head and the door to the kitchen swung open. They all looked over; Alfred was there with a pitcher of water. Bruce returned to his seat but didn’t pick up the tablet again. “I’m too tired for this.”

“I suggest an afternoon of rest,” Alfred said, refilling Jason’s water glass. He caught Dick’s gaze and raised an eyebrow at him, sharp and meaningful. “For everyone.”

The bitterness rising in Dick melted away and he stretched out in the dining room chair. He was, when he thought about it, pretty exhausted. He’d barely slept between spending the previous two days with Jason at the hospital, patrolling over nights, and then helping get Jason home almost before the sun was up. He’d gone down to distract the reporters while Bruce took Jason out another door. That had gone _super_ well.

He was glad to see Jason eating and joking and acting more like himself, but if Dick was honest with himself the exhaustion played a huge part in how well he was handling _anything_ right now, especially the idea of talking to Bruce. His knuckles throbbed and he felt like a bug under a magnifying glass every time Bruce looked at him; it was maybe worse that he hadn’t said anything yet.

When he looked up, it was to give Alfred a smile. Sleep would help. And then he could figure out what to say.

“Yeah, I should try to get a few hours,” Dick said. 

Across from him, Jason pushed an empty plate back and sprawled his upper body across the table. Dick leaned forward and poked Jason’s ear. He knew he was being an ass, he knew _Jason_ would think he was being an ass, but every little bit of physical contact was a solid reminder that it was real.

“Stop,” Jason whined, brushing Dick’s hand away. “I’m sick of sleeping. All I’ve done is sleep.”

“Practice makes perfect,” Dick said and Jason snorted against the table. 

“I don’t wanna move,” Jason said. “I’m staying here.”

“I thought you couldn’t wait to see your bed,” Bruce said, yawning. He left the tablet, the screen dark, on the table when he stood and surveyed them both. 

“I saw it,” Jason mumbled into the tablecloth. “It’s there. It’s great. I’m comfortable here. Can we watch another movie?”

“Bed,” Bruce said, and Dick slid his chair back.

“C’mon, Jay. I’ll give you a ride.” Dick waited to see if Bruce would step aside or not and after a long moment, he did. Dick seized the opportunity to slip around the table to Jason’s side and also add, without making eye contact, “You too, B. You’ve been sleeping in chairs for who knows how long.”

“M’not sleeping unless you sleep,” Jason said, turning from the table. For all his protests, he willingly and limply wrapped his arms around Dick’s neck and let Dick haul him up into a piggyback carry. “Just looking at you makes me tired.”

“Thanks,” Bruce said dryly. “I’ll try. I’ll be up after I talk to Al.”

Dick took that as a dismissal and a welcome one at that. If they didn’t walk up together, maybe he could slip into his room down the hall from Jason’s before Bruce made it up– lock the door, pretend to be asleep already if he wasn’t for real when the inevitable knock came.

He wasn’t particularly looking forward to a lecture but for once, the idea of avoiding it wasn’t going to chase him away from the house.

One steady step at a time, Dick climbed the stairs. Jason was so _light_ , he couldn’t remember if he’d always been so small or not. Maybe he’d grown in Dick’s imagination since…since he died, or maybe he’d just lost weight in the hospital. 

The breath near Dick’s ear was still faintly wheezing, just enough for Dick to notice close-up that it wasn’t deep and healthy. But the arms and chest draped over his shoulders were warm and real and limp with trust, despite Jason’s grumbling at him throughout the morning. He supposed he could chalk that up to the kid still just feeling like crap.

“Little Wing, you still awake?” Dick asked, when he reached the top of the stairs.

“You smell like cave sweat,” Jason complained back. “It stinks.”

“Thanks,” Dick said, jostling him just a little. “Sure that isn’t you?”

“I took a shower,” Jason said while Dick fumbled with the doorknob. “How long’s it been for you? A week? Two?”

“If you weren’t sick, I’d throw you over my head,” Dick said cheerfully. “I miss when you liked me. Can I pay you to pretend for a couple minutes?”

_I missed you._

“How much are we talking,” Jason asked, sliding off Dick’s back and stumbling toward his bed.Dick felt like he’d slipped down too soon, he wanted him to stay close. “I’ll do the big puppy eyes for like, an hour, if you can get Bruce to sleep without fighting.”

“You drive a hard bargain,” Dick said seriously. “An hour?”

“Mm,” Jason answered, burrowing under his blankets. “Gotta be in his own bed. So he’s down the hall. Doesn’t count if it’s downstairs.”

“Deal,” Dick said. 

“You can’t,” Jason challenged sleepily, lifting his head from the pillow. “I’m gonna ask him. I’ll find out if you cheated.”

“I swear on Alfred’s double chocolate cookies I’ll play fair.”

“Kay,” Jason said. “Leave the light on.”

Dick left the light on when he ducked out of the room, hoping he could make it to his own before Bruce came up the stairs if he was coming up at all, but he turned into the hall and almost tripped on Bruce sitting with his back to the wall and a laptop open in front of him.

“Bruce,” Dick said, nudging Bruce with his foot. “Sleep.”

“Hn.” Bruce kept typing.

“B,” Dick said, letting a bit of whine creep into his tone. He maybe wouldn’t be willing to sound anything close to pleading except, even if he never got anything from Jason in return he felt almost like he’d promised him to _try_.

“Dick,” Bruce said evenly. 

Dick stepped over him, over the laptop and Bruce’s slightly bent legs, and dropped to the floor next to him. 

“What are you doing?”

“Keeping an eye on Jason,” Bruce said, like this was obvious. And Dick supposed it kind of was. 

“You’re running a really high risk of becoming an actual helicopter parent,” Dick said, prodding him with his elbow while he sat side by side with him.

“Go sleep, Dick,” Bruce said, his fingers still flying across the keyboard. Dick let his head fall against the wall and he watched Bruce compose an email, terse and minimally detailed, to a few members of the WE board.

“Can’t.” Dick shook his head. “I told Jason I’d talk you into sleeping. He was pretty insistent that it be down the hall. You’ve got another thirty feet to go to your door.”

“Twenty seven point five.”

Dick put a hand over his eyes and then rubbed his forehead, sliding fingers through his hair afterward. His knuckles hurt. He had to stay calm. 

“You can’t go sleep for a few hours?”

“No,” Bruce said. “I’ll be fine.”

“He’s not going to vanish,” Dick said, drumming his fingers on his knee. He switched hands when an ache crept through his palm.

“You don’t know that,” Bruce said, his fingers stalling over the keys. Dick guessed he didn’t actually, even if he thought it was unlikely. His resentment of being forced to consider it was mounting when Bruce added, “I’m keeping an eye on his breathing.” There was a pause during which Bruce typed again and then stopped. “He’s been having panic attacks.”

Dick sighed and let his wrists hang limp over his knees. “I’ll keep you company, then.”

He didn’t want to. He _absolutely_ didn’t. But he had made the cave his base for the past two nights and he’d kept looking around at the gaping vastness and damp stone walls and feeling those twinges of guilt again. Bruce didn’t make it easy but he’d also left him there alone for months, with that memorial case and dead suit constantly watching over him instead of a breathing, living person. 

Still, he waited for the _go sleep, Dick_ , the _don’t be ridiculous_ , or _I’ll be fine_.

It never came.

Bruce sent the email and opened another tab and then put a hand on the corner of the screen, like maybe he was going to close it but wasn’t sure yet.

“I’m guessing you saw the news,” Dick said, figuring they might as well just get it out of the way. “From this morning.”

“No,” Bruce said with a slight frown. “Vicki is coming tomorrow. I’ll deal with libel from the office.”

“Oh,” Dick said. “Well. Um.”

“Should I have seen the news.”

“It’s not _all_ libel?” Dick offered, with a rueful shrug. “And before you get on my case, I know it was stupid and I don’t need to hear it from you and I don’t regret it, anyway. And you’re welcome. And you might get a call from a lawyer.”

“Dick.” Bruce sounded strained and he closed the laptop with a snap. “You said there wasn’t a problem.”

“Jason was _right_ there,” Dick hissed. He could have maybe pulled Bruce aside at some point but he’d been so certain Bruce already knew that he was thrown. “And the guy deserved it anyway.”

“What did you do.” Bruce asked at the same time Dick massaged his hand and it drew Bruce like a homing beacon. Dick didn’t even have to say _I punched a reporter_ , he knew from Bruce’s expression that he’d put it together. Probably had already assumed. 

“Don’t worry,” Dick said. “I kept it sloppy. It looked bad, if anyone was filming. But he really _did_ have it coming. The shit he was saying about…”

Dick trailed off, his fury nearly carrying him into an admission he wasn’t sure he could handle the aftermath of right now.

“You can’t just go around hitting people, Dick,” Bruce said with a sigh, closing his eyes. 

And Dick couldn’t help the way his mouth fell open, the incredulous laugh. “What?”

“You know what I mean,” Bruce said, harsh and low. “You can’t go around hitting people _as_ you, as Richard Grayson. Dammit, you told me you’d take care of it. I should have just gone down instead.”

Dick crossed his arms tightly and hunkered down against the wall. He wasn’t going to be chased off. His promise to Jason to avoid a fight was a distant memory and instead of the threat of exposure he lobbed details like an attack, like a warning. This is what he got every single time he tried to help anymore.

“I _did_ take care of it,” Dick snapped. “I know they say shit all the time but it was over the line, Bruce. I’m not going to let them just ask me things like that about you. You’re welcome.”

“I’ve been dealing with the media my entire life. It will blow over unless _we_ keep escalating it,” Bruce said, frowning directly at him now. “You threw fuel on the fire.”

Dick hunched down further and scowled. Two seconds, that was all he’d give it, and then he was going to go shut the door to his room and stay there until Jason was awake. 

The laptop was set on the floor and Bruce leaned back against the wall again.

“Thank you,” he said quietly right as Dick was tensing to leap up. “I’m not…I’m not handling this well. I don’t want to fight with you.”

“Then _don’t_ ,” Dick growled. “Stop treating me like I’m stabbing you in the back just because I screwed up. Don’t you think I know I did? All the time? I don’t need your voice inside my head _and_ outside, chewing me out.”

Bruce gave him such an odd look that Dick turned away, staring down the hall. It was so familiar and unchanging, like it had been for all of his years there and probably most of Bruce’s.

“I’ve missed you,” Bruce said to the back of Dick’s head. Dick didn’t move. “I’ve missed both of you. I don’t…” He heard Bruce sigh. “I know this is my fault. I want to fix this.”

“It’s not just your fault,” Dick said wearily, blinking back hot tears. He wasn’t going to turn now. 

“I don’t need you to make me feel better,” Bruce said. “I want to know what I can do to stop every conversation from blowing up in our faces.”

“I can tone it down.” Dick said. “For Jason. You have a lot going on and I don’t want to make it harder.”

“No,” Bruce said, sharp with frustration. He exhaled through his teeth, Dick could tell by the sound it made. “Not…” 

“It’s fine,” Dick said, turning and forcing a smile. “Really.”

A moment passed and then another and Bruce shook his head. He tightened his fists and then relaxed them. When he did talk, he sounded calm.

“No, Dick. Not for Jason. Jason will need a lot in the next few months, from all of us. But this isn’t about him. I want _us_ to be okay and I’m tired of being the one in the way of that.”

The forced smile on Dick’s face quivered and then vanished entirely while he stared, as Bruce lifted his chin and met his gaze with a level expression. 

“I want things to change. But I don’t know if you do.”

“Of course I do,” Dick blurted out, before he could tell himself no. It took another second for it to settle in that his gut instinct, and not the rejection of it, was the honest truth. As much as he wanted Bruce to lay off, to let him just live his life, he also missed when they felt like partners. “I hate fighting with you. I always have. And I’m sorry, I’m sorry for leaving you alone when…”

Dick trailed off and swallowed and Bruce’s arm tentatively bumped his shoulder, and when Dick didn’t pull himself away, the arm stayed.

“You’re a good man, Dick. I’ve been hard on you. That’s not your fault.”

It was sort of like being under Bruce’s cape on a rainy night, cold and dripping one minute and then warm and sheltered the next. Dick sighed.

“It’s not just you. And I’m not just saying that,” Dick said. “I mean, a lot of it is you, but not all of it. You don’t get to be the only asshole here.”

“It’s not a competition,” Bruce said wryly. He stretched his legs out across the hall.

“Yeah, well, somebody taught me to always try to be the best,” Dick said. “And I can’t get his voice out of my head.”

Bruce’s mouth tugged sideways in a smile and he nodded to Dick’s hand. “Is your hand alright?”

“Yeah,” Dick said, studying the bruises across the knuckles. “It was a bad punch but not _that_ bad. It’ll be fine in a day or two.”

“Take tonight off,” Bruce said, and then a second later, as if it had just occurred to him, “if you need it. Clark will keep an eye on things for a few days.”

“If I get to sleep tonight,” Dick said, mulling it over, appreciating how much it felt like a _choice_ and not an order, “then I can sit here. Go sleep. I need to win a bet with Jason.”

Bruce didn’t move for a moment and then in one fluid motion, he stood. 

“Hey. Do me a favor?” Dick called, when Bruce was a few steps down the hall. Bruce turned back. “If he asks, tell him we didn’t fight.”

There was a slight dip of Bruce’s head in acknowledgment and then, “But if he asks about your hand, that’s the cover story.”

“Shut up,” Dick laughed. “He won’t ask.”

“Maybe,” Bruce said. “Maybe not. We’ll see.”


	15. Chapter 15

When Alfred had insisted on rest for everyone, he had excluded himself. There were dishes to wash, a dinner to prepare, and half a dozen smaller chores that he’d not gotten around to in the earlier busy days. They had been days full of sitting at the hospital, washing long-neglected bureau drawers of Jason’s wardrobe, shopping for a household that was about to be four– two of them ravenous young men, rather than the light appetites of two men who couldn’t seem to finish a meal.

The others could rest; he would keep the house running smoothly.

He was folding a warm pile of shirts pulled from the dryer, shaking the soft folds out of a pale blue tee, when he remembered that he’d been doing laundry when Bruce had come home.

Alone.

 _“He isn’t coming,”_  was all Bruce had said, to the unspoken question. He’d known Bruce had found Jason, had spent over a week hunting for a biological mother with him. And it was everything Bruce didn’t say: the way he looked like a man who had seen hell open up before him and threaten to drag him in; the defeated slump; the hollow of his vacant gaze like that of the men Alfred had once watched lose their closest squadron comrades to gunfire or landmine.

That day, Bruce had stood in the foyer and regarded the stairs like they were another nightmare, he wouldn’t look at Alfred, he threw his bags in the corner and said he was leaving again the next morning. He’d slept in the Cave, but only for a few hours. And Alfred knew Jason wasn’t on the other side of the world in the midst of a happy reunion.

In a way, Alfred was glad Bruce had left again right away. It meant he could weep and mourn uninterrupted, without the burden of a daily schedule or the need to hide his own grief away in deference to Bruce’s. When Bruce had come back with the claimed body in a sealed box, a broken hand, and the Joker’s supposed death in the news, Alfred had reassembled some semblance of reserve and self-control.

When Alfred had been in the thick of combat, there had been a time when his unit was tasked with the liberation of a POW camp that was on the receding border of enemy territory. It had been nearly deserted when they found it and one man in particular had been seared into his memory. The only survivor of the prisoners he’d been taken with, he spoke little and moved with effort and cried when he thought no one was awake.

It was what living with Bruce had become.

In some ways, for both of them.

The blue tee shirt had grown cold in his hands but Alfred dropped it like it was scalding.

 _I missed you_ , Jason had said at the hospital, without hesitation.

He had no idea. No comprehension of just how much that had been true for the lonely mansion he’d left behind, that  _Alfred_  had helped drive him away from with ill-timed words and overstepping bounds.

There were things Alfred did not want to know and things he needed to know anyway. One of those grey areas had been the nature of Jason’s death, which had come to light not in slowly eked out details but once in a rush over a miserable morning and too little sleep and strong painkillers:

Brutal. Painful. Bloody.

All things Alfred had expected when the funeral had been closed casket, even to himself.

As Robin.

And perhaps, if Alfred had not encouraged ( _pushed_ ) for the suit to be forbidden, Jason Todd would not have died in it.

These were things he had not let himself dwell on, deeply sensing that they would tear him to pieces and spit him out and he would not– could not– survive that. He knew his mettle and he knew what was beyond it.

It had been deliberate, the building of the memorial case. How else could it have been? The careful mending of a uniform, the plated glass, the framing stand and the plaque…these were not things it could fall to anyone else to assemble, such were the nature of their usage.

But fallen soldiers ought to have memorials and Alfred Pennyworth would be damned if he failed that boy one more time. He was prepared to defend it if Bruce protested, to hold his ground on this one point, but that, too, had gone sideways. Bruce, in his self-punishing nature, had taken it as a visible rebuke and Alfred often found him staring at it, when it had never been  _about_  Bruce at all. He thought there was little chance of Bruce ever forgetting Jason, with or without Alfred’s intervention.

And now that very same boy slept upstairs, unaware of his own death or the suffering it had brought to the living. He was now counted among their number and a chill went through Alfred’s bones at the thought that Jason, stubborn and headstrong Jason, might venture down to the familiar cave despite any warnings against it and find  _that_  case.

Something about it turned Alfred’s stomach sour and he abandoned the laundry to hurry downstairs, grateful that the others were resting. Laundry could wait, dinner could be delayed, but that case  _had_  to come down.

There were tools in the cave and Alfred had collected them within moments of descending the stairs. The power drill hummed in his hand as he went for the first screw of the base. He’d dismantle it, pack away or burn the materials, and they’d never have to look at it again.

The thick screw fell to the ground with a clatter, loud and ringing when the drill cut out. The washer remained stubbornly fixed to the wood. Alfred contemplated prying it off with a flathead screwdriver but decided to leave it. It didn’t matter.

He hadn’t believed it was Jason. He had fled the hospital and the sleeping boy’s face when the last memories he had were ones of sullenness and anger, not all undeserved.

Alfred had helped him right out of the Manor and into the grave with his profound misjudgment and even when offered a second chance, he had nearly ruined it.

The next sound in the room was not the drill but the cracking of glass. There was a chair in his hands instead of tools and a thousand little lines running across the case. He didn’t pause to think or study the damage; he hauled the chair back and slammed it into the case again and the entire thing shuddered and burst, fragments of glass flying under the blow.

Then,  _then_  Alfred looked over the mess and heaved a deep breath. He dropped the chair and reached up and took the suit off the stand and carefully and quietly folded it.

Wordlessly, he set it aside and dragged a heavy utility bin over from the workstation. The larger pieces of glass went in first and it was in wrestling one of them from the bit of framing it clung to that it cut his hand, a slice so fast there was blood trailing over the pane before he’d quite realized it had happened.

Only after he glanced down at it did it start stinging, and he paused in his work. He mechanically went through the motions of cleaning and bandaging it, a stiff plaster across his palm. It was just on the edge of needing sutures and he didn’t want to bother. He pulled leather gloves from the tool bench over his hands, the fingers scorched with soldering burns.

Alfred was sweeping the second full dustpan of shards, threads of tranquility weaving the torn ache in his chest with every sliver he swept, when there were sounds of footsteps above and behind him. He chose not to turn.

Two dozen soft footfalls later, Bruce was alongside him. He didn’t speak but when Alfred glanced, his heart lighter than it had been for quite some time but ready to sink again, Bruce had a resolute glint in his stern expression.

“Dick woke me. Jason had another panic attack. They’re watching a movie now,” Bruce said, like he was addressing the empty case.

And then he knelt with the drill and started taking apart the wood base. If he noticed that Alfred had started there and left off working, he didn’t say anything.

It wasn’t long before they were packing the remnants into the incinerator, usually used for biohazard waste and broken or faulty equipment. The plaque was missing from the bin when Alfred was loading the box and he turned to see Bruce slipping it into a drawer.

“What happened?” Bruce asked, nodding to Alfred’s hand when the gloves came off.

“The glass,” Alfred said. “I was being foolish.”

“Hn,” Bruce said, a sort of neutral noise. “Should we order dinner?”

“I ought to be fine,” Alfred said. And he meant it, he felt like he  _could_  mean it, like dismantling the case began to undo the horror of the past half year. They could be alright again, they all could, even if changed.

They went up the stairs together and at the top, before stepping out into the parlor, Bruce paused and swallowed.

“Thank you,” he said. “For…taking it down. You think of everything, Al.”

“Hardly,” Alfred said with a scoffing laugh. “But I’d prefer it if you remember you said so. I may be forced to recall it for you in the future.”

“Mulligatawny, from Cafe Dehli,” Bruce said, with finality, when they stepped out into the Manor. “I’ll even help you convince the boys you made it earlier. Come watch a movie with us.”

Alfred thought of the kitchen, the meals he had ingredients for and how eagerly any of them– Jason– would eat whatever he prepared. But then he thought of Jason himself, no doubt inching closer to Dick on a couch in the den and acting like he wasn’t.

It was time he had no promise of regaining.

In future days, he would again have Jason underfoot in the kitchen while he cooked, sneaking slices of tomato or bits of roast while he talked, but they had future days again.

“Very well,” Alfred agreed, already looking forward to it. “Mulligatawny it shall be.”


	16. Chapter 16

The towering front doors were so stately in scale that they made Vicki Vale feel sort of small and it had always annoyed her. When she’d been dating Bruce, she’d preferred one of the private side doors— it made her feel a bit more like an insider instead of a spectator to his life.

Not that they’d spent much time _at_ the Manor.

But she was here on business and whatever they’d had was far in the past. Vicki wasn’t even especially bitter about it. She hadn’t gotten the sense that he was toying with her or using her, but he’d always been holding back. She never did quite figure out if he was just that bland or a bit empty-headed, like there was nothing there to share. Maybe he was hiding something or just didn’t like her _enough_.

He did _seem_ smart but appearances could be deceptive. 

Whatever the root, they’d looked good together on paper, but had been heading different directions in life. He’d been interested in his company and raising his ward and mental vacations from whatever was happening in Gotham; she’d been immersed in Gotham and being on the move and all the things he didn’t want to discuss if he couldn’t solve himself. They’d parted slowly, gradually, and without much fanfare. 

If it was wrong that she’d put off making a clean break because any lingering attachment meant a _connection_ and open doors, it was maybe just another way they weren’t meant to be. She was fond of him now, in a distant way; he fell into that category of ex-boyfriends she didn’t mind running into, sharing a drink with, or catching up over lunch. But a quick lunch, one she could walk away from without too much wondering “what-if” after they fought over the tab that he ended up paying for old time’s sake.

Vicki hadn’t had many reasons to come out to the Manor again, officially or privately. She’d been a few times for various functions and interviews, but those had dropped off pretty much entirely in the past six months. And even though she was good with words, they weren’t exactly close enough any more for her to offer genuine comfort and even with her head for a story she retained some sense of decorum. She didn’t go as far as sending a card, but she wasn’t in the crowd camped at the gates waiting for some kind of statement about his son’s death.

And maybe if Bruce got a break, the silver lining for her was that if she hadn’t hounded him about the loss of his son, she got the exclusive about his return. She had a heart– she was happy for him– but she also had a job in a struggling media.

“Return,” too, like this wasn’t the story of the century. A dead boy come back to life, and Gotham was used to crazy but this was _beyond_ crazy and shooting right into post-apocalyptic utopia. The internet was already awash with rumors about zombies, messiahs, aliens, Illuminati conspiracies, more. She hoped for their sake it would fizzle out into a general assumption that they’d lied about a kidnapping or had one pulled over on them, because it was the only way Jason Todd was ever going to show his face anywhere again without being harassed.

In the wind whistling around the Manor, it seemed so much _colder_ out here than in the city over the bridge, Vicki shivered and knocked again. They knew she was out here; someone had buzzed her in at the swinging iron gate. She adjusted the strap of her bag on her arm and then her scarf.

The left of the two tall doors swung open and Alfred Pennyworth was beckoning her in, apologizing for the wait, saying something about an “incident” he gave no further details about. Her coat and scarf and hat went onto a polished wooden rack and she was led not into the formal front parlor but down the wide hallway and toward the study.

Another door further down the hall was cracked open, and the sound of conversation drifted out. She was only a step into the study and away from the noise when Bruce stepped out of the lit room and saw her.

“Vicki,” he greeted, with a smile. If she’d been asked, she would have sworn that _he_ was the one body-swapped from the man she’d met in this same house less than a week ago. 

“Bruce,” she said, stepping back into the hall to shake his hand. He gestured her into the room ahead of him and then shut the door after he followed her.

“Can I get you anything to drink?” he asked, taking one of the armchairs. She sat in the other, her bag on her lap as she pulled out her digital recorder and notepad. 

“No, thanks,” Vicki said. She glanced at the shut door. “Is Jason available? For just a question or two?”

“No,” Bruce said, so firmly and coldly that Vicki looked up from the pen she was capping. His face, open and pleasant a moment before, had sharpened with hard lines and thin, pressed lips. He shook his head. “No, Jason isn’t ready. I’ll tell you what I can. That’s your story.”

Vicki considered this for a moment and then pretended to be checking the battery on the recorder. He had to know that Jason _was_ the story; this opportunity was why she’d waited at the hospital, bided her time when he’d promised an exclusive to return what had turned out to be a much more massive favor than she could have ever imagined. 

“He doesn’t have to answer any—”

“No,” Bruce said again. “Not yet.”

Vicki was too professional to scowl or glare and she did, in theory, understand that he wanted to protect his kid…but…

“Bruce, you know me. I’m not going to push buttons for a reaction. He’s a kid. I get that. I just need a sentence, something to put in quotes.”

“No,” Bruce said for a third time. Except this time, he put a hand across his brow and sighed. “I’m sorry if there was a misunderstanding about what this interview would be like, but you aren’t talking to Jason. If it would help, I can see if Dick will talk to you for a few minutes.”

Vicki’s posture was perfect when she wrote the date and Wayne surname on the top of the notebook paper with a frustrated flourish. “Dick _didn’t_ _—”

“He doesn’t know,” Bruce said, cutting her off again. 

“What?” Vicki blinked, her pen frozen above the paper. The recorder was still switched off, the little red light dull and unlit. 

“He doesn’t know yet,” Bruce said, sounding weary as he leaned back in the chair. “I was advised to wait until he started asking questions and he hasn’t yet. The pneumonia is clearing up but he still has a long way to go.”

“I guess coming back from the dead is a rough transition,” Vicki said without thinking, her mind pouring energy into processing instead of filtering. It got a small, bitter laugh out of Bruce, who nodded.

“So, today, you’re stuck with me,” he said after another moment. “Maybe later you can talk to him, when he’s ready.”

“Okay,” she said. She could be patient. An exclusive now followed by another in a few weeks or months would still be good news, would even draw it out a bit with the promise of more to come. “But I’m holding you to that.”

“Don’t think I don’t understand what I owe you, Vick,” Bruce said, his voice suddenly very quiet. She looked over at him again; he was staring at his own hands. In all their time dating and then moving in social circles where they’d see each other, she didn’t think she’d ever seen this kind of emotional range from him— much less in ten minutes. “If you hadn’t convinced me to go to Westside, I…”

Bruce trailed off and Vicki sat, feeling remarkably uncomfortable, while he pressed a hand over his eyes. After another several long seconds, she reached out and awkwardly patted his knee.

“Can I, um…do you want a tissue?” she asked, searching the room for a Kleenex box. It didn’t matter because he shook his head. 

More seconds ticked by and it was probably only a minute or two but it felt like far longer, sitting in Bruce Wayne’s study in a plush armchair and fiddling with her pen while she waited. Even in all the time they’d dated, she’d never seen him _cry_ and it somehow made it worse that she had no idea how to fix it. Would offering a hug be too forward, during an interview? She didn’t usually hug emotionally distraught interviewees but they _had_ something like a relationship and…

“Sorry,” he said, sucking in a breath and dropping his hand. His eyes were still bright with tears, but with a single swipe he’d rubbed them away and then exhaled slowly. “I know I can’t repay you for that.”

“Somebody else would have eventually put it together,” Vicki shrugged, a selfish sense of relief flooding her, and straightened out her notepad on her lap. 

“Not everyone likes me,” Bruce warned, with the light deprecation of someone who was actually fairly well-liked. Right in front of her, he was already regaining his composure and putting that professional expression back on. “And even fewer people would think about his best interests.”

Vicki shrugged a shoulder and decided to just move on. The recorder was set on the arm of the chair and she looked over her paper and the notes on her phone, to shake off the discomfort. It wasn’t like she’d planned to drag him to a reunion, much less one right out of some myth or legend. 

“I’ll be honest,” she said, frowning at the screen. Even with time to prepare, her notes were full of question marks and not having access to Jason nixxed about half of her ideas anyway. “I don’t really know where to start with this. It’s a huge story.”

“I can give you forty minutes,” Bruce said. “So, wing it and I’ll try to be as helpful as I can. Some of it is technically still under police review, since it’s a bit of a legal mess to have someone’s death certificate revoked.”

Vicki gave him a grateful smile and clicked the record button. “Let’s start there. Has Jason’s identity definitely been established?”

“Blood and fingerprints say yes,” Bruce said, nodding tersely. 

“And his…death?” Vicki swallowed, the word strange and surreal on her tongue. “How…certain…was it?”

Bruce’s face darkened for just a moment and then he rubbed his jaw and gave a kind of helpless gesture with his other hand. “Two coroners, one here and one in Ethiopia, have verified in writing it was his body. They’re willing to testify.”

Vicki wrote even though the digital recorder was getting all of it. “So, six months. What’s it like having him back?”

She was doing her best to keep it casual, the way that personal interviews ought to go— a mix of brisk and detached but interested. But he met her eyes for a brief second, just long enough to feel like he’d drilled her to the chair with the intensity there, and then he glanced toward the door to the hall.

“Incredible,” he said softly but fiercely. “If it’s a dream, I don’t want to wake up.”


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to cerusee for lending angst idea.
> 
> CAUTION: Graphic violence warning.
> 
> ALSO, I'd like to upload a few more chapters over the next couple of days, but we're also preparing to move so if there's a longer delay please know I haven't abandoned the story! I'm just Lifeing.

Every second that passed mattered. The battered condition of the body would complicate the time of death just slightly, but there was an explosion to match it to. The problem was that he had no idea how long it would take someone official to show up.

The body.

That was all he could think of it as, right now. The body. Just burnt and bloodied flesh and bones, a  _body_  and not a person. Not his son.

He couldn’t look at the face. It was hard enough to pull off the suit, the gloves, the tattered remnants of the boots. Everything was in pieces, just strips of fabric. He didn’t think about what it meant when he spread them out. He swallowed so hard it hurt when he spread out the civilian clothes next to the rags.

One bit of damage at a time, he replicated the wound pattern on a pair of cargo khaki shorts and a worn tee-shirt. It was a Gotham Knights baseball shirt, the vinyl logo faded but intact. He cut through it and singed the edges, matching the Robin suit. He’d gotten him that shirt during a spring training pre-game, when they’d— he couldn’t.

It was just a body.

It was just a body.

Not a boy. Not  _his_  boy.

 _Wake up,_  something inside him said.

But this was the kind of nightmare that would never end. He wanted to wake up but this wasn’t the sort of thing he woke up from, packing his son’s suit away with the broken parts of his own heart, sealing the bag and fighting the desire to clean off the body and try every last thing to fix it.

Maybe it was better, not being able to clean the fractured limbs and face; a better reminder that this wasn’t something he’d ever be able to fix.

_Wake up._

He moved like a machine, separated from feeling and thoughts and reduced to mere motion. Shirt goes over head and arms. Shorts go over legs.

Body goes in rubble.

His own suit goes in a bag, too.

Bags go in sand dune.

Satellite phone goes in hand.

Emergency services are called.

Nobody’s come yet.

Maybe just another boom and smoke plume on the horizon isn’t the sort of thing that warrants attention here. Maybe the bomb-laden trucks were a distraction.

A relief project, that will be the story.

Wrong place, wrong time.

_Wake up._

Wrong everything.

There is no relief here.

He goes next to the body while he waits.

He is good at appearances, at presenting an image. He knows how to put on a face.

There’s no faking his shock, his stupor, his wordless and empty numbness as he sits.

_Wake up._

He is nine years old, sitting next to death and the end of the world as he knows it. He doesn’t cry because he doesn’t remember how. Tears wouldn’t change anything anyway.

The sun is too bright, too hot.

Everything is so dark.

_Wake up._

He blinks and the body is in front of him again. He is on his knees and the Robin suit is destroyed. He’ll have to destroy clothes, replace the suit, put the body back.

He is sitting in the smoldering remains of the explosion.

He is kneeling next to the unchanged body.

There is sand and wind in his mouth, burn on his ears and neck after he took the cowl off.

Sitting.

Kneeling.

Moving the arms and legs and seeing that the freckles on the ankle are gone. He stares at it and cannot change it.

_Wake up._

Bruce Wayne startled out of restless sleep into the dim late afternoon light peeking through the bottom of the heavy, drawn curtains. For a moment, all he did was try to catch his breath and wait for the thudding of his heart to slow.

He mentally reviewed the things he knew, in a hasty kind of list. They’d been home for four days; Jason was improving all the time; Barbara was coming over for dinner; Dick had stayed home and they hadn’t fought again once.

There was a thin sheen of sweat over his whole body and before he felt remotely settled in the present, the stickiness of the sheets became unbearable and he climbed out of bed.

He went to the bathroom stiff in every limb, already dreading sleeping again whenever that time came around, and he paused with his hand on the faucet knob. Had it been foolish to think they’d fade so quickly? That the things that had haunted him every time he shut his eyes for months would just vanish, like ghosts driven away by the rising sun? He pulled his hand back from the knob.

For long minutes, he stood there with his hands braced against the marble vanity counter. Each breath brought not more calm but more unease— maybe,  _maybe_ , he’d mixed up dreams and reality. It wouldn’t have been the first time.

With an abrupt turn, he left the bathroom and then the bedroom. He knocked, at least, before going into Jason’s bedroom; there was no answer. He cracked the door open. Sleep schedules had been even more of a disaster than normal recently, and afternoon naps were one of the ways they were coping.

The bed was empty and neatly made.

The room was quiet and still.

The swelling, breathless, darkening panic was aborted in the tightness of his throat when he stood there frozen and heard a small voice ask,

“Bruce?” from somewhere in the room.

“Jason?”

It was hard to keep the relief hidden, but he thought he managed well enough. He went the rest of the way into the room, searching, and he found Jason curled up into a tight ball on the other side of the bed with his back against the wall.

His face was streaked with tears and even from where he stood, Bruce could see how badly Jason was shaking. It wasn’t him waking up with a scream or unable to breathe, but that didn’t make it seem any better.

“I thought I heard him,” Jason said, shrinking down into himself. “Laughing.”

The lurch of his stomach felt like it almost threw Bruce off his feet, but in reality he didn’t move except to turn on the bedside table light. He crouched down in front of Jason and lifted the boy’s chin with two fingers.

“He’s dead, Jason,” Bruce said, feeling more confident about this than he had in months. Now, he  _needed_  it to be true. Jason nodded, his head a reassuring weight against Bruce’s hand.

“I keep forgetting,” he whispered. “I wake up and forget.”

“It’ll get easier,” Bruce said, hoping it was true. He actually wasn’t sure. It hadn’t gotten easier for him, yet; it’s just that waking up now was so much better than waking up before. He wanted to pick Jason up and hold him, carry him around for the rest of the day, but he doubted Jason would appreciate it as much.

He held out a hand in offering, instead. They needed to keep moving, to do something else instead of staying with fears and theories. Jason took it and he pulled them both to their feet, and then, kept pulling until Jason was pressed against him for a hug after all.

Bruce kept him there until the boy’s trembling subsided and Jason took a deep, long breath.

“I’m okay,” Jason said quietly, when Bruce’s arms loosened and he stepped back. He was glaring at the floor when he said it and Bruce suddenly remembered Dick, smaller and younger even than Jason was now, trying his best to act tough until he collapsed in an angry, exhausted tantrum they both felt he was too old for.

But nightmares weren’t picky about age.

And Alfred had not been shy in sharing his opinions on Bruce’s own displays of vulnerability and the ways Dick was trying to emulate him, and whether or not that was healthy for anyone. Bruce felt sometimes like it was the lesson he’d never really master.

“I had a bad dream, too,” Bruce said. Jason looked up sharply, a suspicious frown tugging at the corners of his eyes.

“Really?” he demanded, sounding on the verge of insulted. “What about?”

_You. When I couldn’t save you._

Bruce managed a tight smile. “The usual. Disjointed stuff. Just unpleasant. Barbara’s coming soon. We should clean up. We can wait in the study, maybe read or play chess.”

It wasn’t  _we can talk if you need to_ , but it was close. And Jason understood.

“I’m going to shower,” Bruce said. “You okay by yourself for a few minutes?”

If they  _were_  going to talk, if Jason finally needed to, he might appreciate a few minutes to sort his thoughts. Bruce watched him carefully for any sign that he didn’t like the idea, but Jason did look a lot calmer.

“I’ll find Dick,” Jason said. “I’m fine.”

Bruce ruffled his hair and Jason scowled at him, a familiar and only half-hearted irritation, and Bruce headed for his room.

It was only ten minutes later, when he was shaving and partly dressed, that there was a soft rap on the door.

“B? You done? I heard the shower turn off. Dick’s asleep.”

“Shaving,” Bruce said.

The door swung open without Jason waiting for further invitation. He leaned, propped his elbow on the counter, and cushioned his chin with his palm while he watched in the mirror.

“Come in,” Bruce said dryly, tapping the razor against the sink under the running water.

Jason shrugged and then got close to the mirror and peered at his upper lip, stretched over his teeth.

“I’m probably gonna need to start shaving soon,” Jason said seriously, rubbing the side of his thumb against his face.

Bruce paused to glance at him in the mirror, and after a brief inspection of Jason’s face, their eyes met.

“Maybe,” he said, meaning  _maybe in two years if you’re lucky, kid_.

“Really,” Jason insisted. “I feel scruff.”

“I can’t see it,” Bruce said, rinsing the razor again.

“It’s really light,” Jason said, with a casual tone.

“And in your imagination,” Bruce retorted, with a small smirk. “Honestly, Jay-lad. Don’t rush it. It’s a hassle.”

“When did Dick start shaving?” Jason asked, apparently settling for comparison if he wasn’t going to get a concession another way.

“Hm,” Bruce thought. “He was…fourteen? Definitely younger than you. A lot younger.”

To his credit, Jason waited until the razor was far from Bruce’s face before landing a solid punch to his shoulder.

“B,” he whined after, draping his whole upper body across the vanity. “I’m  _serious_.”

“I don’t remember,” Bruce admitted a moment later. “He didn’t want to shave right away. He tried to grow a mustache.”

“And you  _let_  him?” Jason asked incredulously, lifting his head.

“Alfred has a mustache,” Bruce said in calm defense. “And Dick is stubborn.”

“Maybe he got it from you,” Jason offered cheerfully.

“Weren’t you going to find something to read?” Bruce asked. “Instead of tormenting me?”

He was joking; he could stand there and happily let Jason tear into him for hours, still. He wiped his face off and grabbed the shirt hanging nearby.

“I wanna play chess,” Jason said. “When Babs gets here, I need to tell her I beat you.”

“Don’t lie to Babs,” Bruce said and Jason grinned.

“Oh, I’m not going to lie,” he said. “I’m gonna do it.”

“Let’s go down so I can prove you wrong,” Bruce said. “I want to get it over with before she gets here, so you can pull yourself together.”

“I’ll go set it up,” Jason said, dragging himself off the counter. He was out of the room in a flash of motion and Bruce finished buttoning his shirt while suppressing an irrational surge of fear at watching him go ahead.

They were at home.

Jason was fine.

He could deal with memories of when he wasn’t  _later_ , but not now, not when they had dinner company on the way and he had a chess match to win.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi! it’s been a while! thanks, as always, to Cerusee for workshopping with me when I was stuck on this chapter.

The dining room table was immaculately set with a fine dinner service Barbara didn’t think she’d ever eaten off of before— most of the time she had food at the Manor, it was hor d’oeuvres at parties or meals served in the cave. She’d never been a frequent upstairs guest, not solo, anyway.

Every time Dick Grayson looked in her direction, Jason leaned and stole a steamed carrot from his plate with a quick jab of his fork. Dick, either from exhaustion or resignation, didn’t notice or was pretending not to, while he chatted with her. Bruce had barely said a dozen words, but that was, well, that was Bruce. He did have a little upward curve in the corner of his mouth that she’d been missing for months. That was nice.

The first time Jason looked up from his carrot theft and saw her face, which probably had a dumb expression because she’d tried to go for either scolding or amused and gotten stuck in the middle, he turned beet red. But he kept it up and was now giving her cheeky, sly grins everytime she got Dick to look her way. 

It was easy, too. Too easy. Had Dick Grayson always been this easy to talk to? Bruce and Jason seemed content to let them lead the conversation, but she was more surprised than anyone by the direction. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d spent time with Dick, other than brief stints with him out as Nightwing— he’d gone from endearing younger kid to a bit of a hot-tempered snot that had her constantly double checking her math on their age difference, and hoping she hadn’t sounded that bratty just three or four years before.

But now, listening to him tell a story about Bruce from years ago— he was clearly trying to get Jason to laugh and it was working— she felt like maybe, somewhere, he’d come into his own. Had it only been a year or so? It felt longer. It felt like a lifetime ago.

Her hand rested idly on one lime-green wheel grip and Jason was fishing ice out of his glass with his fingers, pointedly ignoring Bruce’s frown, and she supposed that in some ways, the year before _was_ lifetimes ago.

Things had changed so much for all of them.

When Alfred returned with a tray of dessert plates, Babs took the opportunity to venture, “So, anyone up for a game?”

It was the sort of thing she and her dad might do. The kind of thing he did when he had friends over, or that she did when she’d visited friends’ families in college. She somehow had a hard time imagining this little family around a board game, but maybe she just hadn’t been in that part of their lives before. Sometimes, she and Bruce played rummy or something when he’d visit the hospital.

To her relief, none of them looked bewildered by this proposition. Jason and Dick looked excited, even.

“I beat Bruce at chess before you came,” Jason said, half the sponge cake on his plate already gone. “Well, almost, anyway.”

“I’d captured most of your pieces, Jay,” Bruce said, faintly amused.

“It’s not over til it’s over,” Jason shot back. “I still had my king.”

“Don’t feel bad, Little Wing. One of us will beat him someday.”

“Don’t call me little, Dickwing.”

There was a scuffle of kicking feet under the table and Babs was warmed by the long-suffering expression Bruce wore.

“Might I suggest Pictionary?” Alfred said sedately, and the escalating battle between the chairs drew to a halt. Jason got one final solid kick in, if Dick’s wince was any indication.

“I’ll get it,” Bruce said, rising and tossing his napkin on the table. “We’ll move to the den.”

“No,” Dick whined. “You know I can’t draw.”

“Then you should practice,” Bruce said, slipping his hands in the pockets of his slacks. He looked at her. “Babs?”

“Charades,” Dick said, pointing a finger at Bruce.

“Alfred, play with us!” Jason added, wolfing down another serving of cake. Crumbs flew everywhere and he scrubbed impatiently at his mouth and swallowed. “Sorry. Alfred, _please_ play with us.”

Babs, guessing Bruce meant for her to follow and maybe have a chance to talk, had already wheeled herself back from the table. She stopped while Bruce and Alfred exchanged a look she couldn’t decipher.

“It’s up to you,” Bruce said, with a half-shrug. 

A small smile curved the edges of Alfred’s mouth. “I believe I shall join you, then.”

Jason cheered and stole the rest of Dick’s cake. 

“I’ll get paper,” Dick said, rubbing his knuckles hard into Jason’s hair as he stood. The younger boy squirmed away with an angry yell.

“I’ll prepare coffee, or perhaps cocoa is more in order?” Alfred offered.

“Cocoa sounds great,” Babs said, thinking about caffeine and medication interactions she hadn’t quite figured out yet. “Unless I’m the only one.”

“I can’t have coffee,” Jason grumbled around a mouthful of stolen cake. “Somebody’s got a stick up his ass again.”

“Cocoa,” Alfred agreed mildly. “I’ll bring a tray to the den.”

Whatever Bruce had wanted to talk about, if anything, was going to have to wait. Jason went with them down the hall, telling Barbara in a long-suffering tone how impossible Bruce’s coffee rule was now that it had been reinstated. 

Personally, she agreed with Jason, but she wasn’t going to contradict Bruce about it when he was just reassembling some control as a parent again. Even if she thought the coffee was taking it a bit far, she could sympathize with the protective streak— and she wasn’t about to talk herself out of a cocoa buddy. 

She really did need to figure out her own caffeine tolerance again, though, if she was planning long nights soon.

Dick joined them just as they were going into the den, with a sheaf of paper in one hand and some pencils in the other. “I had to hunt for these,” he said accusingly, but without real heat. “Nothing but fountain pens everywhere.”

If Babs hadn’t known them as well as she did— even not knowing Dick as well as she used to— she would have missed the sharp warning glance Bruce shot in Dick’s direction, his face a careful blank just as Jason jerked his head up and cut his complaining short to glance at Bruce.

“Whaddaya mean? I keep pencils all over for school, since I lose ‘em so fast.”

“Oh, uh,” Dick raised his eyebrows in a sort of desperate shrug, plastering a rueful smile on as soon as Jason swung to look at him, after being apparently dissatisfied with his evaluation of Bruce’s reaction. “I must have just looked in the wrong places, Jay. I really just checked Bruce’s desk.”

“Idiot,” Jason muttered, taking a pencil from Dick’s hand. 

Babs accepted a pencil without insulting Dick, giving him instead a slightly reassuring smile. She knew Bruce had reasons for not flat out telling Jason but he was going to figure it out or have questions soon, and she doubted they should be actively hiding small details from him that might prick his deductive skills into working. 

Whatever tension was between Dick and Bruce smoothed out quickly. Babs was grateful they’d seemed to figure out something more effective than the fights of a few years ago.

Alfred arrived not long after, bearing a tray with mugs of hot cocoa. He passed them out and then took off his jacket, and neatly hung it on the back of a chair back in the corner. It must have served has some signal about his intentions to participate, because Jason visibly relaxed and scooted over on the couch with an anticipatory grin. 

Babs curled her hands around her mug of cocoa and sipped at it, then looked around the room. “Okay, boys. Somebody needs to get us going.”

“Alright,” Dick answered, setting his mug down and springing to his feet. He sent the pieces of paper around. “You know the usual rules. No lipreading, no sign language, no Morse code, or signal flags, or smoke signals, or—”

“We get it, we get it!” Jason interrupted from where he was slumped back on the couch, his chin tucked against his chest while he tapped paper with the eraser end of the pencil.

“It’s Bruce!” Dick protested. “I have to get technical. I guess we’ll do, uh…me and Babs and Jason against Bruce and Alfred? Babs?”

“I’m fine with that,” Babs said. “Three against two is good odds for me.”

“It’s really two against two; Jay’s a freebie,” Dick said, dodging Jason’s wild swing at his knee with a hop out of the way. “Any other objections?”

“Sounds good, Dick,” Bruce said. “Who goes first?”

“Alfred!” Jason said, sitting up and twisting to find the older man in the room. “Please?”

Babs was curious about this, and Jason’s obvious enthusiasm for Alfred’s participation only served to heighten her own. She had known Alfred for years and heard bits of scattered stories about his acting days, just remarks here and there, and the occasional monologue usually utilized for chiding or humoring someone, but she’d never seen him actually relax in a social setting. Jason must have, at some point, which made her feel better about suggesting a game at all.

When there were no protests, Alfred stood and slipped a folded piece of paper toward Dick. “I trust you’ll continue as master of ceremonies, Master Richard?”

Alfred was in the center of their attention with a rapt audience. Jason had his arms wrapped around his knees, watching intently. Babs let her gaze linger on him for just a second longer, drinking in the sight of Jason alive, and then refocused. 

There was a flourish in the wave of Alfred’s hand, and before he finished the motion, Bruce spoke, calm and quick:

“The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. The novel.”

Alfred nodded, a pleased smirk tugging on his lips, and Jason groaned and threw his arms in the air. Dick yelled and Babs laughed.

“Come _on_!” Dick exclaimed. “How are you cheating?”

“I would never, Master Richard,” Alfred said.

“Bruce!” Jason whined. “He was gonna act for us and you _ruined it_!”

“Was I not supposed to play the game?” Bruce asked, his expression serious but a glint of mirth and triumph in his eyes. “I thought the goal was to win.”

“Ugh!” Jason flopped back on the couch. He rolled over and leaned on the arm. “Al, one more? Please?”

“Begging doesn’t become you, Master Jason. I believe there is more than a single round.”

“We’re starting over,” Dick said, staring at the paper in his hand and then crumpling it up. “New teams. I can’t play like this. They’re going to do it the whole game.”

“You put them together,” Jason accused. “You know how they are and you did it anyway.”

“I wasn’t thinking!”

Babs was quiet throughout their squabble because she was watching Bruce’s face. Months of weekly visits and she’d never seen him approaching anything even this close to happy, or content— not even when he was forcing himself to be the more cheerful one on her bad days. He wasn’t a terrible actor himself, and she’d only let it slide because it seemed less like patronizing and more like an effort of service. 

She’d figured some days, they both needed that pretense.

But this, this was real. 

Her gaze swung to Jason, who was rough-housing with Dick, just in time to see Dick raise his hand for a mock punch. In her peripheral, Bruce was on his feet just as Babs even registered that Jason flinging his arms over his head and shrinking back was something real and not exaggerated play.

She edged her chair forward toward the problem automatically, moving to help, but Dick stood and stumbled back with a stricken look. Bruce crouched in front of the couch, not touching Jason while he murmured to him.

“Jay-lad, look at me. You’re alright. Where are you, Jason?”

“I’m fucking _fine_ ,” Jason muttered with tremulous anger, crossing his arms while a deep flush rose up his neck. Whatever the motion had triggered, he’d deeply reburied or it had slipped away, and he seemed to resent the sudden attention. 

Except, he didn’t shake off the hand Bruce put on his knee, and when Bruce sat next to him and put an arm around his shoulders, he leaned into him and curled there.

“Sorry, Jason,” Dick said, pressing his lips together right after. “I didn’t—”

“Can you shut up for like two seconds?” Jason cut him off. 

The silence thrummed deep and tense, and Babs thought Dick looked like he might cry. He went out of his way to go around the back of the couch and take the armchair Bruce had vacated. Babs wheeled over to him while Bruce talked quietly to Jason, who was like a furious little stormcloud tucked in against his side.

It sparked something in her mind, and her chest. Jason was relaxing, his arms coming uncrossed, and Babs wondered what he would have done if Bruce hadn’t been there. 

He needed him. He needed his _dad_ , just like Babs had needed Jim all those days right after when he sat with her when she cried and refused to take the bait when she ranted. He’d been her constant and more available then than he had for most of her last years at home in high school.

She pursed her lips, considering, and then turned to Dick and patted his hand. His drumming fingers stilled on the arm of the chair and he looked up at her.

“It’s not your fault,” she whispered, knowing he could read her lips even if her voice was barely audible. “It’s going to be hard for a while.”

The relief on his face wasn’t total, but it was there. He gave her a tentative, lopsided smile. “Thanks,” he whispered back. “I just wish I could fix it.”

“You and everybody,” Babs said with a wry expression. “Just stick around. You’ll get more chances to help.”

Dick nodded and turned his hand to give her a gentle squeeze. Then he let go and asked, “So, we want to keep playing?”

“Maybe a break would—” Bruce started, but Jason shoved at his side without pulling away from him.

“I said I’m _fine_. We gotta start over so Alfred can actually get to do something.”

“Alright,” Bruce said, placating. “Dick?”

“Alfred and Jason can swap teams,” Dick suggested, waiting a moment to see if anyone objected. “Maybe we should draw names for turns.”

“I’ll go,” Babs said, scribbling something down. “Unless somebody wants to fight me for it.”

“We’d be utter fools, Miss Gordon,” Alfred said. “The stage is yours.”

Babs grinned and shoved down her slight panic at being on the spot while she figured out how to blend what she knew how to do from before with her mobility now. But Jason’s eyes intently on her, and his older brother’s equally attentive gaze, was a good distraction and it was less cumbersome than she’d feared. 

They were also all quick to guess, and before long, the game was actually moving pretty smoothly. She wondered how long it had been since the Manor had been full of that kind of laughter, and teasing, and Alfred’s performance didn’t disappoint— even if she and Dick did manage to guess quickly, though not nearly as quickly as Bruce had. The real challenge ended up being speed. They were all decent at acting, at communicating without words, all of them dramatic and expressive enough when they needed to be.

She’d almost forgotten Bruce managed several undercover identities before he pulled off some facial stunts that had Jason giggling helplessly on the couch, the earlier conflict forgiven as he clung to Dick’s arm. He was too breathless to attempt to guess and end the turn. She suspected he didn’t really want to. She suspected Bruce was hamming it up just to hear Jason laugh.

They were deep into a fourth round and Babs was trying to decide and how to politely excuse herself before she was a yawning mess— her exhaustion served as a bitter reminder of how little she’d gotten out socially the past year— when Alfred stood to clear the now-cold hot cocoa tray and paused in view of the window. The curtains were parted just slightly, so Babs couldn’t see outside, but whatever he saw made him stop.

“Master Bruce,” he said, and Jason froze in the middle of his turn. “The signal is lit, sir.”

“Oh,” Jason said, dropping to the floor to sit cross-legged. He stifled his own yawn. “Okay.”

He didn’t seem to be bothered by this interruption in the least, which startled Babs. Bruce, on the other hand, looked immediately furious.

Babs read it as conflicted, and she didn’t think she was wrong.

“B, you gotta go,” Jason said. “I know you haven’t since you came to the hospital.”

“I’ll go,” Dick said, his whole posture rigid like he was already prepared to attack someone. 

Bruce was quiet for a long, long time, until Alfred prompted, “Master Bruce?”

“Jason,” Bruce said, his voice so hard Babs nearly winced. “Are you sure? I can stay.”

“I mean, you aren’t going to let me go right after pneumonia. I’m not even gonna ask. But it’s Gotham.”

Bruce exhaled, long and slow, and then clapped Dick on the shoulder. “Stay here,” he ordered. 

He left without another word, and Babs and Dick exchanged brief and worried glances. She wondered if Jason knew yet how often Bruce had been coming home injured. She knew, because he rarely bothered to hide (or maybe couldn’t manage to hide) how stiff or sore he was whenever he visited at the end of a day. She hoped for his sake, and Jason’s, he could pull himself out of the reckless and fierce violence that had become a habit over the past months.

But if she’d been certain about other things, this wasn’t one of them.

“Bruce, I need to talk to you,” she said quickly. “Thanks for the good evening, everybody. And for dinner, Alfred. I’m pretty beat, so I’ll just say bye now and see myself out.”

“I’ll drive you back,” Dick offered immediately. “You won’t have to wait for a taxi.”

“Sure,” she accepted, mostly so she could follow Bruce before he grew too focused and just left. 

She caught up to him outside the clock.

“I have to go out,” he said, a little defensively. “He’s right. I can’t leave the city indefinitely.”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Babs said, steeling herself and deciding in a moment. “I’ve got…some plans I’ve been working on.”

“This is about the Clocktower?” he asked, attention sharpening on her. She nodded, a bit irked at having her suspicions about his knowledge confirmed but also grateful she didn’t have to start from scratch. 

“I think it’s about time I started doing test runs. I’m going…home, this weekend. Dad’s helping, so no, before you ask, I’m fine on my own. And that’s my point. You need to be here right now. Jason needs you here. _You_ need you here.”

Bruce opened his mouth and she held up a hand. 

“It was hard for any of us to say something,” Babs said, guessing Alfred and Dick had probably tried. “You know you were out of control. We just didn’t know what to do about it, anymore than you did. But things have changed. You both need time to heal.”

She knew she’d hit home when Bruce actually looked back at the parlor door, back toward the den they’d both just left. He sighed.

“It’s not just me,” he said. “The city…it’s gotten worse.”

“I know,” Babs said. “But right now, you’re running blind. You don’t know how serious something is until you get there. Your scope is limited. I can change that. I think Dick’s going to be around for a bit, and between the two of us, I think we can let you know when something warrants your attention and we can handle the rest for a while.”

“I can’t let you carry all that,” Bruce said, frowning.

“You haven’t coddled me since that first day you came to visit, so don’t start now,” Babs snapped. “I’m not asking permission. I’m telling you what I’m going to do, because I can still make a difference here. I need that. I’ve had time to work on getting better. Now it’s your turn, and you’d be an idiot to not take it.”

“You have no idea how infuriating you used to be,” Bruce said, with a suddenly fond look. “I still say things and you just don’t listen.”

“I listen to some of it,” Babs retorted, tone softening. “Return the favor. For Jason’s sake, if not your own.”

“How long will you need to get set up?” Bruce asked, and Babs breathed an inward sigh of relief that he wasn’t refusing. It made it easier if he wasn’t fighting her on it. 

“I can have the first phase running by Monday night,” she said. “And it’s going to change everything.”

“Thank you, for coming tonight,” he said, his hand on the clock. “And it’s…the downstairs is ready, for you. With ramps. There’s an elevator now. For whenever you need to stop by. I made sure.”

He left without waiting for her response, the clock shutting soundlessly against the wall behind him. She was glad he’d gone, and wasn’t there to see the tears that welled in her eyes. She brushed them away quickly and took a moment to collect and compose herself before going to find Dick for her ride home.

Not home.

The hospice building. 

For just a few more days.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> two chapters in two days and now i vanish again.

The lights were all on in the library, every single one of them. The three overhead lights set into the vaulted ceiling, the recessed lighting along the shelves, the desk and table lamps-- all clean, crisp light in the otherwise darkened house. Upstairs, Jason’s bedroom was dark and the blankets were in a tangled heap, just the way the room had been when he woke gasping from a nightmare.

 _The_  nightmare.

Again.

He hadn’t meant to fall asleep. The book he kicked off the bed at some point was still up there, on the floor, probably with bent pages and a creased spine. When the Batsignal lit up the Gotham skyline, Bruce had seemed a little pissed about going out, and Jason had decided to wait up for him. He hadn’t even asked to go, because, well, in a house where they still limited his coffee intake he didn’t think he had much chance of throwing himself into nightwork with the lingering pneumonia cough and who knows how many days since he’d last worked out.

So, he’d fallen asleep reading and without any time to dread what sleeping would mean. He still couldn’t decide if that made it better or worse, not being ready for the nightmare.

He’d dreamt in darkness and panic and woke up in darkness and panic.

All the library lights were on and he was sitting in the middle of the rug, surrounded by armchairs in one of the biggest, most open rooms of the house other than the ballroom. The deciding factor had been temperature: the whole wing with the ballroom was kept slightly lower when in disuse, to conserve energy. The library wasn’t toasty, exactly, but it was warm enough, and if he really wanted to he could probably start a fire in the big stone fireplace.

The room was  _that_  big. Big enough to have a fireplace in a room full of books and not be worried, because there were so many steps between the hearth and the shelves.

It wasn’t big enough.

It was cold and rainy outside again, too cold and bare for April. Jason had spent an afternoon studying the trees from various windows in the house, trying to figure out what was  _wrong_  with them before he realized he could have sworn they’d been budding before he left. Now they were skeletal and wet, but there were no green-white knobs on the tips of the branches.

So, even if it was the most open space he could possibly get, he wasn’t going to go sit outside. Too chilly. Too damp. Too…wrong. All too much like the nightmare.

Restless and with a sharp icy sting in his bones, despite his long pajamas and hoodie, Jason stood and headed for the fireplace. He remembered a bomb, remembered like it was  _seconds_  ago, but at least he barely remembered flames. It was everything before that and the heat of the blast that haunted him and those weren’t the things on his mind right now. He moved the mesh grate out of the way and hauled rough logs into the fireplace from the neat stack to his left.

Somewhere, in a cabinet, there were packages of kindling and starter paper and a lighter or some matches. He found them nestled under a small decorative shelf set into the stone to the side of the yawning hearth, and within minutes was leaning over to blow gently on the orange glow licking its way along the paper and leaving embers in its wake.

A few more minutes of work gave him something to do while the logs caught, and then, satisfied it would keep going, he dragged the grate back into place and scooted back. Watching the smoke curl up and into the chimney (he had to double check that he’d opened the flue) made him nervous, so he let it burn and kept his distance.

Close enough to feel the warmth, not close enough to feel it as  _heat_.

It was a tightrope, like everything recently.

Not too open, but open enough.

Not too hot, but hot enough.

He was still sitting on the rug with his arms wrapped around his knees when one of the doors behind him opened. He turned, less startled than he maybe should have been in a massive house at two in the morning, and Bruce was standing there.

“Everything okay?” Bruce asked, like it was only  _slightly_  odd to find a teenage boy sitting in a library with a roaring fire and all the lights on at, well, two in the morning.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Jason said, shrugging. He turned back to look at the fire and inside his head he was begging,  _don’t send me to bed don’t send me to bed please don’t send me to bed._

The door shut and the sound of padded footsteps carried across the room. Bruce sat down next to him on the rug, a little stiffly like he was sore. Jason glanced over. He was used to Bruce looking tired, but he looked so  _old_  recently, with new gray hairs and lines by his eyes and a mouth that was always bent into a flat frown when he was distracted. More than usual. More than before.

Another thing to feel uneasy about.

“How was it?” Jason asked, hugging his legs more tightly.

“Rough,” Bruce answered, without elaborating.

Jason bit his lip and watched the fire flicker around a pale log. He was used to not always going out, to Bruce leaving him home because of school or a cold or just a situation he decided Jason didn’t need to see, but he was  _also_  used to getting some information. A serial killer, or a drug bust, or missing people, or an Arkham name.

“Is Alfred downstairs?” Jason asked, wondering. He’d spent a couple minutes hanging around the kitchen after his nightmare, thinking about making tea and hoping that if Alfred was around he’d show up like he usually did and offer to make it himself. But the kitchen was empty and it  _felt_  empty, like it didn’t expect anyone for a while, which was a stupid feeling to have but it was how it felt.

“No,” Bruce said. “I think he’s asleep.”

“Oh.” Jason sank his chin against his arms. “I had a nightmare.”

He didn’t plan to say it but as soon as he did, his heart was thudding against his ribs and he wanted to shake Bruce. He wanted him to stop acting so weird, to stop with the strange silences and the way he and Alfred moved around each other like they weren’t used to staying in the same room anymore, he wanted to walk by without people acting startled and then delighted to see him, he wanted all of it to just be  _normal_.

“I’m sorry,” Bruce said, putting a hand on Jason’s shoulder and squeezing gently. It was such an ordinary, usual thing that Jason felt tears welling up for the relief of it. “Want to talk about it?”

Jason didn’t. He didn’t want to talk about the way he closed his eyes and couldn’t see  _anything_  but knew there was something above his head, the way he woke in a dream like he was waking up for real and could smell mud and damp, rotting wood. He didn’t want to talk about the terror closing up his throat and dirt falling against his teeth and his fingers raw like he was peeling them apart. He didn’t want to talk about it  _at all_ , but more than that, he wanted it to stop.

When he did start talking, his voice sounded far away to his own ears and his mouth was dry. He wished he’d made himself some tea after all.

“I keep having a dream that I’m digging myself out of something,” he said and Bruce,  _Bruce_  who could stare at a crime scene without showing a single emotion honest-to-god flinched and then went as still as stone next to him. “Something underground. A box. It’s dark and then when I get to the top, it’s still dark, but it’s wet. I think I use my belt sometimes.”

For the first time all night, Jason stopped avoiding looking at his own hands. They weren’t bandaged anymore but the scrapes were still there, a few sutures, too. They were scabbing over or itching as they healed, and a few fingernails had a long way to go before they were anything like real nails again. He didn’t like looking at them because he kept telling himself they were burns, but looking at them meant he had to admit they didn’t look anything  _like_  burns.

He was staring at them intently and listening to Bruce’s quiet stillness, the kind where he sounded like he almost wasn’t breathing, and Jason himself felt like he wasn’t really breathing anymore but instead of scaring him it just felt empty and separate from a boy sitting on a rug in front of a late autumn fire.

And it was autumn and they weren’t burns on his hands and the trees weren’t mysteriously dying. He’d somehow missed the part between the young green leaves and the yellow-orange-red flurry of fall and all the summer months where things had changed around the Manor and in Bruce and in Alfred.

Jason wasn’t sure, but he thought he probably started realizing when he was still in the hospital and Bruce wouldn’t let him turn the TV on or play dumb games on his phone to kill time, when it was hard to hold on to details anyway and it was easy to just let things slide or pretend he wasn’t beginning to know.

The log on the top of the fire shifted and it seemed like the air had been sucked from the room and in the emptiness of it, he managed the whisper:

“It isn’t a nightmare, is it.”

He turned his head and Bruce met his eyes. Jason thought he looked about a hundred years old when he swallowed and held Jason’s gaze for a second, two seconds, then dropped it and faced the fire again instead.

“No,” Bruce said. “It’s not.”

“Huh,” Jason said, like the world as he knew it wasn’t falling apart. “Huh.”

“We— I…I thought…” Bruce stumbled through the words and Jason blinked at the rug, wondering if he should feel angry or hurt or scared or  _something_. “I wanted to wait until you were ready to ask.”

“How…” Jason frowned. He’d been avoiding the questions, the inevitability of it, of admitting or facing it and now that he  _had_  to know he couldn’t figure out where to start. “How long was I…”

What  _had_  he been, exactly? Whatever it was, he was alive now, and that seemed like pretty strong evidence he’d had some misunderstanding somewhere along the line, maybe it was a cryotank like Nora Fries and things were still too muddled. There had been a  _bomb_  after all, that much he knew he remembered for sure.

“You were dead for six months and twelve days,” Bruce said, in a voice that made Jason shiver. “We buried you next to Catherine. I know…I know you’d found your mother, but it was…complicated.”

“I want to see it,” Jason said, and  _holy fuck how had he forgotten Sheila_  because he had, until that moment, he remembered the Joker and the crowbar and the laughter and the bomb and she had been a massive, absent blank from the whole mess in his head. He couldn’t even think of how to say anything about the realization ripping him into pieces like a bomb all over again, so he licked his lips and just managed, “It’s okay, that it was my mo-- Catherine. That it was Catherine.”

“It’s not there for much longer,” Bruce said.

“I want to see it,” Jason said again. “As soon as it’s light.”

He glared at Bruce because he  _needed_  to see it, to be sure with his own eyes, and if Bruce said no he was going anyway.

“Okay,” Bruce said, without a hint of resistance. “We’ll go when the sun is up.”

And at that, Jason felt all the fight go out of him and he stretched out on the rug with his feet toward the fire and thought maybe it would be okay if he just laid there without moving for  _hours_ , until dawn sifted through the windows and he could go get in the car. Bruce stretched out next to him with a sigh and a faint groan.

“You okay?” Jason asked, his hair falling across his forehead when he turned to look at Bruce.

“It’s nothing,” Bruce said dismissively. “Just a bad landing.”

“I was really dead?” Jason asked, before it really hit him and he couldn’t ask again.

Bruce nodded.

“For six months?”

“And twelve days.”

“Fuck,” Jason breathed out.

Bruce didn’t reprimand him.

“Did you…” Jason swallowed and stared at the ceiling. It was white and curved at the edges and was so high, so far away, that it was cozy and safe. “Did you miss me?”

“Every minute,” Bruce answered without hesitation. “Every damn second.”

“Okay,” Jason said. “Sorry.”

“No,” Bruce said, tugging at Jason’s sleeve when he wouldn’t look over again. He dragged Jason across the plush rug by his hoodie until Jason could roll, just a little, and curl up against Bruce’s side. “Don’t be. Of course I missed you. It’s not your fault.”

“I missed tenth grade,” Jason said into Bruce’s shirt. “Shit.”

Bruce chuckled and sounded like he might cry and Jason wanted to make it stop, but he wanted to hear it, too. “I knew you’d be mad about that. You didn’t miss all of it.”

“I need to catch up,” Jason said, and he was warm and not below the floor and there was so much beautiful  _space_ above him and his hands weren’t in pieces. “I’m gonna catch up.”

“You will,” Bruce said, hugging the one arm around him. “I’ll help. Alfred and Dick will, too.”

Jason didn’t want to move, ever, and it was hours until dawn but he didn’t want to miss  _that_  either, because he had to go and he was afraid if he didn’t push that he wouldn’t get to see it and it would be too late and he’d never be  _really_  sure.

“You should get some sleep,” Jason said, craning his neck to look up at Bruce. Bruce  _was_  staring at the ceiling like he had just been doing, looking wide awake and exhausted at the same time. “You probably still don’t sleep enough.”

“No,” Bruce said. “I don’t.”

And it was his job as Robin, he should get up, drag on Bruce’s arm until they were both heading up the stairs since Alfred wasn’t there to do it, but upstairs was Jason’s bedroom and it was dark and probably cold again by now.

Jason didn’t think he ever  _did_  really fall asleep, and he didn’t think Bruce did either, but he didn’t move until the sun was coming up and the darkness outside didn’t look so thick and deep like a coffin.


End file.
